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THE HAUNTED MAN 


THE GHOST’S BAKGAIH. 


; % iTancs Cljristntaa-^inte. 


BY 

CHAELES ^piCKENS. 


1867 ^ 

y/^ 

NEW YORK: 

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 


82 CLIFF STREET. 





BY THE SAHE AUTHOR, 

Price 6 cents each. 

A CHRISTMAS CAROL, 

In Prose, being a Ghost Story for Christmas. 

THE BATTLE OP LIFE: 

A Love Story. 

THE CHIMES; 

A Goblin Story of some Bells that rang an old Year out and a new Year in. 

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH; 

A Fairy Tale of Home. 


The above, including 

THE HAUNTED MAN 

And the Ghost’s Bargain. A Fancy for Christmas-Time. 
Bound in one volume, muslin gilt, 50 cents 



IIFE AND ADVENTURES OF MARTIN CHUZZIEWIT. 

With 14 Illustrations. Paper, 60 cents ; Muslin, 75 cents 


THE HAUNTED MAN 




CHAPTER I 

THE GIFT BESTOWED. 

Everybody said so. 

Far be it from me to assert that what every- 
body says must be true. Everybody is, often, 
as likely to be wrong as right. In the general 
experience, everybody has been wrong so oft- 
en, and it has taken, in most instances, such a 
weary while to find out how' wrong, that the 
authority is proved to be fallible. Everybody 
may sometimes be right ; “but that's no rule,” 
as the ghost of Giles Scroggins says in the ballad. 

The dread word. Ghost, recalls me. 

Everybody said that he looked like a haunted 
man. The extent of my present claim for ev- 
erybody is, that they were so far right. He did. 

Who could have seen his hollow cheek ; his 
sunken brilliant eye ; his black-attired figure, 
indefinably grim, although well-knit and well- 
proportioned ; his grizzled hair hanging, like 
tangled sea-weed, about his face, — as if he had 
been, through his whole life, a lonely mark for 
the chafing and beating of the great deep of hu- 
manity, — blit might have said he looked like a 
haunted man 1 

Who could have observed his manner, taci- 
turn, thoughtful, gloomy, shadowed by habitual 
reserve, retiring always and jocund never, with 
a distraught air of reverting to a byegone place 
and time, or of listening to some old echoes in 
his mind, but might have said it was the man- 
ner of a haunted man 1 

Who could have heard his voice, slow-speak- 
ing, deep, and grave, with a natural fulness and 
melody in it which he seemed to set himself 
against and stop, but might have said it was the 
voice of a haunted man 1 * 

Who that had seen him in his upper chamber, 
part library and part laboratory, — for he w^as, as 
the world knew, far and wide, a learned man 
in chemistry, and a teacher on whose lips and 
hands a crowd of aspiring ears and eyes hung 
daily, — who that had seen him there, upon a 
winter night, alone, surrounded by his drugs 
and instruments and books ; the shadow of his 
shaded lamp a monstrous beetle on the wall, 
motionless among a crowed of spectral shapes 
raised there by the flickering of the fire upon 
the quaint objects around him ; some of these 
phantoms (the reflection of glass vessels that 
held liquids), trembling at heart like things that 
knew his power to uncombine them, and to give 
back their component parts to fire and vapour ; 
— who that had seen him then, his work done, 
and he pondering in his chair before the rusted 
grate and red flame, moving his thin mouth as 
if in speech, but silent as the dead, would not 
have said that the man seemed haunted and the 
chamber too 1 

Who might not, by a very easy flight of fan- 


cy, have believed that everything about him 
took this haunted tone, and that he lived on 
haunted ground 1 

His dwelling was so solitary and vault-like, 
— an old, retired part of an ancient ondowmient 
for students, once a brave edifice, planted in an 
open place, but now the obsolete w’him of for- 
gotten architects, smoke-age-and- weather-dark- 
ened, squeezed on every side by the overgrow- 
ing of the great city, and choked, like an old 
well, with stones and bricks ; its small quad- 
rangles, lying down in very pits formed by the 
streets and buildings, which, in course of time, 
had been constructed above its heavy chimney 
stacks ; its old trees, insulted by the neighbor- 
ing smoke, which deigned to droop so low when 
it Was very feeble and the weather very moody ; 
its grass-plots, struggling with the mildewed 
earth to be grass, or to win any show of com- 
promise ; its silent pavements, unaccustomed ' 
to the tread of feet, and even to the observation 
of eyes, except when a stray face looked down 
from the upper world, wondering what nook it 
was ; its sun-dial in a little bricked-up corner, 
where no sun had straggled for a hundred years, 
but where, in compensation for the sun’s neg- 
lect, the snow would lie for weeks when it lay 
nowhere else, and the black east wind would 
spin like a huge humming-top, when in all oth- 
er places it was silent and still. 

His dwelling, at its heart core — within doors 
— at his fireside — was so lowering and old, so 
crazy, yet so strong, with its worm-eaten beams 
of wood in the ceiling, and its sturdy floor 
shelving downward to the great oak chimney- 
piece ; so environed and hemmed in by the 
pressure of the town, yet so remote in fashion, 
age, and custom ; so quiet, yet so thundering 
with echoes when a distant voice was raised or 
a door was shut — echoes, not confined to the 
many low passages and empty rooms, but rum- 
bling and grumbling till they'were stifled in the 
heavy air of the forgotten Crypt where the 
Norman arches were half-buried in the earth. 

You should have seen him in his dw'elling 
about twilight, in the dead winter time. 

When the wind was blowing shrill and 
shrewd, with the going down of the blurred 
sun. When it was just so dark, as that the 
forms of things were indistinct and big, but not 
wholly lost. W'hen sitters by the fire began to 
see wild faces and figures, mountains and abyss- 
es, ambuscades and armies, in the coals. When 
people in the streets bent down their heads, and 
ran before the weather. When those who 
w’ere obliged to meet it, were stopped at an- 
gry corners, stung by wandering snow-flakes 
alighting on the lashes of their eyes, which fell 
too sparingly, and were blow'n away too quick 
ly, to leave a trace upon the frozen ground. 
When windows of private houses closed up 


4 


THE HAUNTED MAN AND 


tight and warm. When lighted gas began to 
burst forth in the busy and the quiet streets, 
fast blackening otherwise. When stray pedes- 
trians, shivering along the latter, looked down 
at the glowing fires in kitchens, and sharpened 
their sharp appetites by sniffing up the fragrance 
of whole miles of dinners. 

When travellers by land were bitter cold, 
and looked wearily on gloomy landscapes, rus- 
tling and shuddering in the blast. When mari- 
ners at sea, outlying upon icy yards, were tossed 
and swung above the howling ocean dreadfully. 
When light-houses, on rocks and headlands, 
showed solitary and watchful ; and benighted 
sea-birds breasted on against their ponderous 
lanterns, and fell dead. When little readers of 
story-books, by the firelight, trembled to think 
of Cassim Baba cut into quarters, hanging in 
the Robber’s Cave, or had some small misgiv- 
ings that the fierce little old wmrnan, w'ith the 
crutch, who used to start out of the box in the 
merchant Abudah’s bedroom, might, one of 
these nights, be found upon the stairs, in the 
long, cold, dusky journey up to bed. 

When, in rustic places, the last glimmering 
of daylight died away from the ends of ave- 
nues ; and the trees, arching overhead, were 
sullen and black. When, in parks and wmods, 
the high wet fern and sodden moss, and beds 
of fallen leaves, and trunks of trees, were lost 
to view in masses of impenetrable shade. 
When mists arose from dyke, and fen, and riv- 
er. When lights in old halls and in cottage 
windows w^ere a cheerful sight. When the 
mill stopped, the wheelwright and the black- 
smith shut their workshops, the turnpike-gate 
closed, the plough and harrow w'ere left lonely 
in the fields, the labourer and team went home, 
and the striking of the church clock had a deep- 
er sound than at noon, and the church-yard 
wicket would be swung no more that night. 

When twilight everywhere released the 
shadows, prisoned up all day, that now closed 
in and gathered like mustering swarms of 
ghosts. When they stood lowering, in corners 
of rooms, and frowned out from behind half- 
opened doors. When they had full possession 
of unoccupied apartments. When they danced 
upon the floors, and walls, and ceilings of in- 
habited chambers, while the fire was low, and 
withdrew like ebbing waters when it sprung 
into a blaze. When they fantastically mocked 
the shapes of household objects, making the 
nurse an ogress, the rocking-horse a monster, 
the wondering child, half-scared and half- 
amused, a stranger to itself, — the very tongs 
upon the hearth, a straddling giant with his 
arms a-kimbo, evidently smelling the blood of 
Englishmen, and wanting to grind people’s 
bones to make his bread. 

When these shadows brought into the minds 
of older people, other thoughts, and showed 
them different images. When they stole from 
their retreats, in the likenesses of forms and 
faces from the past, from the grave, from the 
deep, deep gulf, where the things that might 
have been, and never were, are always wan- 
dering 

When he ’sat, as already mentioned, gazing 
at the fire. When, as it rose and fell, the 
shadows went and came. When he took no 
heed of them, with his bodily eyes ; but, let 


them come or let them go, looked fixedly at the 
fire. You should have seen him, then. 

When the sounds that had arisen with the 
shadows, and come out (*f their lurking places 
at the twilight summons, seemed to make a 
deeper stillness all about him. When the 
wind was rumbling in the chimney, and some- 
times crooning, sometimes howling in the 
house. When the old trees outside were so 
shaken and beaten, that one querulous old 
rook, unable to sleep, protested now and then, 
in a feeble, dozy, high-up “Caw!” When, at 
intervals, the window trembled, the rusty vane 
upon the turret-top complained, the clock be- 
neath it recorded that another quarter of an 
hour was gone, or the fire collapsed and fell in 
with a rattle. 

— When a knock came at his door, in short, 
as he was sitting so, and roused him. 

“ Who's thatl” said he. “ Come in !” 

Surely there had been no figure leaning on 
the back of his chair ; no face looking over it. 
It is certain that no gliding footstep touched 
the floor, as he lifted up his head, with a start, 
and spoke. And yet there was no mirror in 
the room on whose surface his own form could 
have cast its shadow for a moment ; and Some- 
thing had passed darkly and gone ' 

“ I’m humbly fearful, sir,” said a fresh-col- 
oured busy man, holding the door open with 
his foot for the admission of himself and a 
wooden tray he carried, and letting it go again 
by very gentle and careful degrees, when he 
and the tray had got in, lest it should close 
noisily, “ that it’s a good bit past the time to- 
night. But Mrs. William has been taken off 
her legs so often — ” 

“ By the wind 1 Ay ! I have heard it rising.” 

“ — By the wind, sir — that it’s a mercy she 
got home at all. Oh dear, yes. Yes. It was 
by the wind, Mr. Redlaw. By the wind.” 

He had, by this time, put down the tray for 
dinner, and was employed in lighting the lamp, 
and spreading a cloth on the table. From this 
employment he desisted in a hurry, to stir and 
feed the fire, and then resumed it ; the lamp 
he had lighted, and the blaze that rose under 
his hand, so quickly changing the appearance 
of the room, that it seemed as if the mere com- 
ing in of his fresh red face and active manner 
had made the pleasant alteration. 

“Mrs. William is of course subject at any 
time, sir, to be taken off her balance by the el- 
ements. She is not formed superior to 

“ No,” returned Mr. Redlaw' good-naturedly, 
though abruptly. 

“No, sir. Mrs. William may be taken off 
her balance by Earth ; as, for example, last 
Sunday week, when sloppy and greasy, and she 
going out to tea with her newest sister-in-law, 
and having a pride in herself, and wishing to 
appear perfectly spotless though pedestrian. 
Mrs. William may be taken off her balance by 
Air ; as being once over-persuaded by a frierid 
to try a swing at Peckham Fair, which acted 
on her constitution instantly like a steam-boat. 
Mrs. William may be taken off her balance by 
Fire ; as on a false alarm of engines at her 
mother’s, when she went two mile in her night- 
cap. Mrs. William may be taken off her bal- 
ance by Water; as at Battersea, when rowed 
into the piers by her young nephew, Charley 


THE GHOST’S BARGAIN. 


5 


Swidger junior, aged twelve, which had no I 
idea of boats whatever. But lliese are ele- 
ments. Mrs. William must be taken out of 
elements for the strength of her character to 
come into play.” 

As he stopped for a reply, the reply was 
“Yes,” in the same tone as before. 

“ Yes, sir. Oh dear, yes !” said Mr. Swidg- 
er, still proceeding with his preparations, and 
checking them off as he made them. “That’s 
where it is, sir. That’s what I always say my- 
self, sir Such a many of us Swidgers ! — Pep- 
per. Why there’s my father, sir, superannua- 
ted keeper and custodian of* this Institution, 
eigh-ty-seven year old. He’s a Swidger ! — 
Spoon.” 

“ I'rue, William,” was the patient and ab- 
stracted answer, when he stopped again. 

“ Yes, sir,” said Mr. Swidger. “ That’s what 
I always say, sir. You may call him the trunk 
of the tree ! — Bread. Then you come to his 
successor, my unworthy self — Salt — and Mrs. 
William, Swidgers both. — Knife and fork. 
Then you come to all my brothers and their 
families, Swidgers, man and woman, boy and 
girl. Why, what with cousins, uncles, aunts, 
and relationships of this, that, and t’other de- 
gree, and what-not degree, and marriages, and 
lyings-in, the Swidgers — Tumbler — might take 
hold of hands, and mak6 a ring round England !” 

Receiving no reply at all here, from the 
thoughtful man whom he addressed, Mr. Will- 
iam approached him nearer, and made a feint 
of accidentally knocking the table with a decan- 
ter, to rouse him. The moment he succeeded, he 
went on, as if in great alacrity of acquiescence. 

“ Yes, sir ! That’s just what I say myself, 
sir. Mrs. William and me have often said so. 

‘ There’s Swidgers enough,’ we say, ‘ without 
our voluntary contributions’ — Butter. In fact, 
sir, my father is a family in himself — Castors 
— to take care of; and it happens all for the 
best that we have no child of our own, though 
it’s made Mrs. William rather quiet-like too. 
Quite ready for the fowl and mashed potatoes, 
sirl Mrs. William said she’d dish it in ten min- 
utes when I left the Lodge"?” 

“ I am quite ready,” said the other, waking 
as from a dream, and walking slowly to and fro. 

“Mrs. William has been at it again, sir!” 
said the keeper, as he stood warming a plate at 
the fire, and pleasantly shading his face with it. 
Mr. Redlaw stopped in his walking, and an ex- 
pression of interest appeared in him. 

“ What I always say myself, sir. She will do 
it ! There’s a motherly feeling in Mrs. Will- 
iam’s breast that must and will have went.” 

“ What has she done 1” 

“ Why, sir, not satisfied with being a sort of 
mother to all the young gentlemen that come 
up from a wariety of parts, to attend your 
courses of lectures at this ancient foundation 
— it’s surprising how stone-chaney catches the 
heat, this frosty weather, to be sure !” Here 
he turned the plate, and cooled his fingers. 

“ Well?” said Mr. Redlaw. 

“That’s just vdiat I say myself, sir,” return- 
ed Mr. William, speaking over his shoulder, as 
if in ready and delighted assent. “That’s ex- 
actly where it is, sir ! There ain’t one of our 
students but appears to regard Mrs. William in 
that light. Every day, right through the course, 


they put their heads into the Lodge, one after 
another, and have all got something to tell her, 
or something to ask her. ‘ Swidge’ is the ap- 
pellation by which they speak of Mrs. William 
in general, among themselves, I’m told ; but 
that’s what I say, sir Better be called ever 
so far out of your name, if it’s done in real lik- 
ing, than have it made ever so much of, and 
not cared about! What’s a name for? To 
know a person by. If Mrs. William is known 
by something better than her name — I allude 
to Mrs. William’s qualities and disposition — 
never mind her name, though it is Swidger, by 
rights. Let ’em call her Swidge, Widge, Bridge, 
— Lord ! London Bridge, Blaekfriars’, Chelsea, 
Putney, Waterloo, or Hammersmith Suspension 
— if they like !” 

The close of this triumphant oration brought 
him and the plate to the table, upon which he 
half laid and half dropped it, with a lively sense 
of its being thoroughly heated, just as the sub- 
ject of his praises entered the room, bearing 
another tray and a lantern, and followed by a 
venerable old man with long gray hair. 

Mrs. William, like Mr. William, was a simple, 
innocent-looking person, in whose smooth 
cheeks the cheerful red of her husband’s offic.ial 
waistcoat was very pleasantly repeated. But 
whereas Mr. William’s light hair stood on end 
all over his head and seemed to draw his eyes 
up with it in an excess of bustling readiness for 
any thing, the dark brown hair of Mrs. William 
was carefully smoothed down, and waved away 
under a trim tidy cap, in the most exact and 
quiet manner imaginable. Whereas Mr. Will- 
iam’s very trousers hitched themselves up at 
the ankles, as if it were not in their iron-grey 
nature to rest without looking about them, 
Mrs. William’s neatly-flowered skirts — red and 
white, like her own pretty face — were as com- 
posed and orderly, as if the very wind that blew 
so hard out of doors could not disturb one of 
their folds. Whereas his coat had something 
of a fly-away and half-off appearance about the 
collar and breast, her little bodice was so plac- 
id and neat, that there should have been pro- 
tection for her, in it, had she needed any, with 
the roughest people. Who could have had the 
heart to make so calm a bosom swell with grief, 
or throb with fear, or flutter with a thought of 
shame ! To whom would its repose and peace 
have not appealed against disturbance, like the 
innocent slumber of a child ! 

“ Punctual, of course, Milly,” said her hus- 
band, relieving her of the iray, “or it wouldn’t 
be you. Here’s Mrs. William, sir ! — He looks 
lonelier than ever to-night,” whispering to his 
wife as he was taking the tray, “ and ghostlier 
altogether.” 

Without any show of hurry or noise, or any 
show of herself even, she was so calm and quiet, 
Milly set the dishes she had brought upon the 
table, — Mr. William, after much clattering and 
running about, having only gained possession 
of a butter-boat of gravy, which he stood ready 
to serve. 

“ What is that the old man has in his arms?” 
asked Mr. Redlaw, as he sat down to his soli- 
tary meal. 

“ Holly, sir,” replied the quiet voice of Milly. 

“ That’s what I say myself, sir,” interposed 
Mr. William, striking in with the butter-boat 


6 


THE HAUNTED MAN AND 


“ Berries is so seasonable to the time of year ! 
— Brown gravy !” 

“ Another Christmas come, another year 
gone !” murmured the Chemist, with a gloomy 
sigh. “ More figures in the lengthening sum of 
recollection that we work and work at to our 
torment, till Death idly jumbles all together, and 
rubs all out. So, Philip !” breaking off, and 
raising his voice as he addressed the old man, 
standing apart, with his glistening burden in his 
arms, from which the quiet Mrs. William took 
small branches, which she noiselessly trimmed 
w'ith her scissors, and decorated the room with, 
while her aged father-in-law looked on, much 
interested in the ceremony. 

“ My duty to you, sir,” returned the old man. 
“ Should have spoken before, sir, but know your 
ways, Mr. Redlaw — proud to say — and wait till 
spoke to ! Merry Christmas, sir, and happy 
New Year, and many of ’em. Have had a pret- 
ty many of ’em myself — ha, ha ! — and may take 
the liberty of wishing ’em. I’m eighty-seven !” 

“ Have you had so many that were merry 
and happy 1” asked the other. 

“ Ay, sir, ever so many,” returned the old man. 

“ Is his memory impaired with age 1 It is to 
he expected now,” said Mr. Redlaw, turning to 
the son, and speaking lower. 

“ Not a morsel of it, sir,” replied Mr. William. 
“ That’s exactly what I say myself, sir. There 
never was such a memory as my father’s. He’s 
the most wonderful man in the world. He 
don’t know what forgetting means. It’s the 
very observation I’m always making to Mrs. 
William, sir, if you’ll believe me !” 

Mr. Swidger, in his polite desire to seem to ac- 
quiesce at all events, delivered this as if there 
were no iota of contradiction in it, and it were 
all said in unbounded and unqualified assent. 

The Chemist pushed his plate away, and, ris- 
ing from the table, walked across the room to 
where the old man stood looking at a little sprig 
of holly in his hand. 

“ It recalls the time when many of those 
years were old and new, then 1” he said, ob- 
serving him attentively, and touching him on 
the shoulder. “ Does it 1” 

“Oh, many, many!” said Philip, half awak- 
ing from his revery. Pm eighty-seven !” 

“ Merry and happy, was it 1” asked the Chem- 
ist, in a low voice. “Merry and happy, old 
man 1” 

“ Maybe as high as that, no higher,” said the 
old man, holding out his hand a little way above 
the level of his knee, and looking retrospective- 
ly at his questioner, “ when I first remember 
’em I Cold, sunshiny day it was, out a walk- 
ing, when some one — it was my mother as sure 
as you stand there, though I don’t know what 
her blessed face was like, for she took ill and 
died that Christmas-time — told me they were 
food for birds. The pretty little fellow thought 
— that’s me, you understand — that birds’ eyes 
were so bright, perhaps, because the berries 
that they lived on in the winter were so bright. 
I recollect that. And I’m eighty-seven !” 

“ Merry and happy 1” mused the other, bend- 
ing his dark eyes upon the stooping figure, with 
a smile of compassion. “Merry and happy — 
and remember well 1” 

“ Ay, ay, ay I” resumed the old man, catch- 
ing the last words, “ I remember ’em well in 


my school-time, year after year, and all the 
merry-making that used to come along with 
them. I was a strong chap then, Mr. Redlaw ; 
and, if you’ll believe me, hadn’t my match at 
foot-ball within ten mile ! Where’s my son 
William 1 Hadn’t my match at foot-ball, Will- 
iam, within ten mile !” 

“That’s what I always say, father I” return 
ed the son promptly, and with great respect. 
“You ARE a Swidger, if ever there was one of 
the family 1” 

“ Dear !” said the old man, shaking his head 
as he again looked at the holly. “ His mother 
— my son William’s my youngest son — and I 
have sat among ’em all, boys and girls, little 
children and babies, many a year, when the ber- 
ries like these were not shining half so bright 
all round us as their bright faces. Many of ’em 
are gone ; she’s gone ; and my son George (our 
eldest, who was her pride more than all the 
rest !) is fallen very low ; but I can see them, 
when I look here, alive and healthy, as they 
used to be in those days ; and I can see him, 
thank God, in his innocence. It’s a blessed 
thing to me, at eighty-seven.” 

The keen look that had been fixed upon him 
with so much earnestness, had gradually sought 
the ground. 

“When my circumstances got to be not so 
good as formerly, through not being honestly 
dealt by, and I first come here to be custodian,” 
said the old man, “ — which was upwards of 
fifty years ago — where’s my son William 1 
More than half a century ago, William !” 

“ That’s what I say, father,” replied the son, 
as promptly and dutif^ully as before, “ that’s ex- 
actly where it is. Two times ought’s an ought, 
andtw'ico five ten, and there’s a hundred of 'em.” 

“ It was quite a pleasure to know that one 
of our founders — or more correctly speaking,” 
said the old man, with a great glory in his sub- 
ject and his knowledge of it, “ one of the learned 
gentlemen that helped endow us in Queen Eliz- 
abeth’s time, for we were founded afore her 
day — left in his will, among the other bequests 
he made «s, so much to buy holly, for garnish- 
ing the walls and windows, come Christmas. 
There was something homely and friendly in it. 
Being but strange here, then, and coming at 
Christmas time, we took a liking for his very 
picter that hangs in what used to be, anciently, 
afore our ten poor gentlemen commuted for an 
annual stipend in money, our great Dinner 
Hall. — A sedate gentleman in a peaked beard, 
with a ruff round his necK, and a scroll below 
him, in old English letters, ‘ Lord ! keep my 
memory green !’ You know all about him, Mr. 
Redlaw I” 

“ I know the portrait hangs there, Philip.” 

“Yes, sure, it’s the second on the right, 
above the panneling. I was going to say — he 
has helped to keep my memory green, I thank 
him ; for going round the building every year, 
as I’m a doing now, and freshening up the bare 
rooms with these branches and berries, fresh- 
ens up my bare old brain. One year brings 
back another, and that year another, and those 
others numbers ! At last, it seems to me as 
if the birth-time of our Lord was the birth-time 
of all I have ever had affection for, or mourned 
for, or delighted in, — and they’re a pretty many, 
for I’m eighty-seven !” 


THE GHOST’S BARGAIN. 


7 


“ Merry and happy,” murmured Redlaw to 
himself. The room began to darken strangely. 

“ So you see, sir,” pursued old Philip, whose 
hale wintry cheek had warmed into a ruddier 
glow, and whose blue eyes had brightened while 
he spoke, “ I have plenty to keep, when I keep 
this present season. Now, where’s my quiet 
Mouse 1 Chattering’s the sin of my time of 
life, and there’s half the building to do yet, if 
the cold don’t freeze us first, or the wind don’t 
blow us away, or the darkness don’t swallow 
us up.” 

The quiet Mouse had brought her calm face 
to his side, and silently taken his arm, before 
he finished speaking. 

“ Come away, my dear,” said the old man. 
“ Mr. Redlaw won’t settle to his dinner, other- 
wise, till it’s cold as the winter. I hope you’ll 
excuse me rambling on, sir, and I wish you 
good-night, and, once again, a merry — ” 

“ Stay !” said Mr. Redlaw, resuming his 
place at the table, more, it would have seemed 
from his manner, to reassure the old keeper, 
than in any remembrance of his own appetite. 
“ Spare me another moment, Philip. William, 
you were going to tell me something of your 
excellent wife’s honour. It will not be disagree- 
able to her to hear you praise her. What 
was it 1” 

“ Why, that’s where it is, you see, sir,” re- 
turned Mr. William Swidger, looking towards 
his wife in considerable embarrassment. “Mrs. 
William’s got her eye upon me.” 

“ But you’re not afraid of Mrs. William’s eye 1” 

“ Why, no, sir,” returned Mr. Swidger, 
“ that’s what I say myself. It wasn’t made to 
be afraid of. It wouldn’t have been made so 
mild, if that was the intention. But I wouldn’t 
like to — Milly ! — him, you know Down in the 
Buildings.” 

Mr. William, standing behind the table, and 
rummaging disconcertedly among the objects 
upon it, directed persuasive glances at Mrs. 
William, and secret jerks of his head and thumb 
at Mr. Redlaw, as alluring her towards him. 

“ Him, you know, my love,” said Mr. William. 
“ Down in the Buildings. Tell, my dear ! 
You’re the works of Shakspeare in comparison 
with myself. Down in the Buildings, you know, 
my love. — Student.” 

“ Student 1” repeated Mr. Redlaw, raising his 
head. 

“ That’s what I say, sir !” cried Mr. William, 
in the utmost animation of assent. “If it 
wasn’t the poor student down in the Buildings, 
why should you wish to hear it from Mrs. Will- 
iam’s lipsl Mrs. William, my dear — Build- 
ings.” 

“ I didn’t know,” said Milly, with a quiet 
frankness, free from any haste or confusion, 
“ that William had said anything about it, or I 
wouldn’t have come. I asked him not to. It’s 
a sick young gentleman, sir — and very poor, I 
am afraid — who is too ill to go home this holi- 
day-time, and lives, unknown to any one, in but 
a common kind of lodging for a gentleman, 
down in Jerusalem Buildings. That’s all, sir.” 

“ Why have I never heard of him 1” said the 
Chemist, rising hurriedly. “ Why has he not 
made his situation known to me 1 Sick ! — give 
me my hat and cloak. Poor ! — what house 1 — 
what number 1” 


“ Oh, you mustn’t go there, sir,” said Milly, 
leaving her father-in-law, and calmly confront- 
ing him with her collected little face and folded 
hands. 

“ Not go there P’ 

“ Oh dear, no !” said Milly, shaking her head 
as at a most manifest and self-evident impossi- 
bility. “It couldn’t be thought of!” 

“ What do you mean 1 Why not P’ 

“ Why, you see, sir,” said Mr. William Swidg- 
er, persuasively and confidentially, “ that’s what 
I say. Depend upon it, the young gentleman 
would never have made his situation known to 
one of his own sex. Mrs. William has got into 
his confidence, but that’s quite different. They 
all confide in Mrs. William ; they all trust her. 
A man, sir, couldn’t have got a whisper out 
of him ; but woman, sir, and Mrs. William com- 
bined — !” 

“ There is good sense and delicacy in what 
you say, William,” returned Mr. Redlaw, ob- 
servant of the gentle and composed face at his 
shoulder. And laying his finger on his lip, he 
secretly put his purse into her hand. 

“ Oh dear no, sir !” cried Milly, giving it back 
again. “ Worse and W'orse I Couldn’t be 
dreamed of!” 

Such a staid matter-of-fact housewife she 
was, and so unruffled by the momentary haste 
of this rejection, that, an instant afterwards, 
she was tidily picking up a few leaves which had 
strayed from between her scissors and her apron, 
when she had arranged the holly. 

Finding, when she rose from her stooping 
posture, that Mr. Redlaw was still regarding 
her with doubt and astonishment, she quietly 
repeated — looking about, the while, for any oth- 
er fragments that might have escaped her ob- 
servation : 

“ Oh dear no, sir ! He said that of all the 
world he would not be known to you, or receive 
help from you — though he is a student in your 
class. I have made no terms of secrecy with 
you, but I trust to your honour completely.” 

“Why did he say soP’ 

“Indeed I can’t tell, sir,” said Milly, after 
thinking a little, “ because I am not at all clever, 
you know ; and I wanted to he useful to him in 
making things neat and comfortable about him, 
and employed myself that way. But I know he 
is poor, and lonely, and I think he is somehow 
neglected too. — How dark it is !” 

The room had darkened more and more. 
There w^as a very heavy gloom and shadow 
gathering behind the Chemist’s chair. 

“ What more about him P’ he asked. 

“ He is engaged to be married when he can 
afford it,” said Milly, “ and is studying, I think, 
to qualify himself to earn a living. I have seen, 
a long time, that he has studied hard and denied 
himself much. — How very dark it is!” 

“ It’s turned colder, too,” said the old man, 
rubbing his hands. “ There’s a chill and dis- 
mal feeling in the room. Where’s my son Will- 
iam 1 William, my boy, turn the lamp, and 
rouse the fire !” 

Milly’s voice resumed, like quiet music very 
softly played : 

“ He muttered in his broken sleep yesterday 
afternoon, after talking to me” (this was to her- 
self) “ about some one dead, and some great 
wrong done that could never be forgotten ; but 


8 


THE HAUNTED MAN AND 


whether to him or to another person, I don’t 
know. Not by him, I am sure.” 

“ And, in short, Mrs. William, you see — which 
she wouldn’t say herself, Mr. Redlaw, if she was 
to stop here till the new year after this next 
one — ” said Mr. William, coming up to him to 
speak in his ear, “has done him worlds of 
good. Bless you, wmrlds of good ! All at home 
just the same as ever — my father made as snug 
and comfortable — not a crumb of litter to be 
found in the house, if you were to offer fifty 
pound ready money for it — Mrs. William appar- 
ently never out of the way — yet Mrs. William 
backwards and forwards, backwards and for- 
wards, up and down, up and down, a mother to 
him !” 

The room turned darker and colder, and the 
gloom and shadow gathering behind the chair 
■w’as heavier. 

“Not content with this, sir, Mrs. William 
goes and finds, this very night, when she was 
coming home (why, it’s not above a couple of 
hours ago), a creature more like a young wild 
beast than a young child, shivering upon a door 
step. What does Mrs. William do, but brings 
it home to dry it, and feed it, and keep it till 
our old Bounty of food and flannel is given 
away, on Christmas morning ! If it ever felt a 
fire before, it’s as much as it ever did ; for it’s 
sitting in the old Lodge chimney, staring at ours 
as if its ravenous eyes would never shut again. 
It’s sitting there, at least,” said Mr. William, 
correcting himself, on reflection, “ unless it’s 
bolted !” 

“ Heaven keep her happy !” said the Chemist 
aloud, “ and you too, Philip ! and you, William ! 
I must consider wLat to do in this. I may de- 
sire to see this student. I’ll not detain you lon- 
ger now. Good-night !” 

“I thankee, sir, I thankee!” said the old 
man, “ for Mouse, and for my son William, and 
for myself. Where’s my son William 1 Will- 
iam, you take the lantern and go on first, through 
them long dark passages, as you did last year 
and the year afore. Ha, ha ! I remember — 
though I’m eighty- seven ! ‘Lord keep my 
memory green !’ It’s a very good prayer, Mr. 
Redlaw, that of the learned gentleman in the 
peaked beard, with a ruff round his neck — hangs 
np, second on the right above the ^'anneling, in 
what used to be, afore our ten poor gentlemen 
commuted, our great Dinner Hall. ‘ Lord keep 
my memory green I’ It’s very good and pious, 
sir. Amen! Amen!” 

As they passed out and shut the heavy door, 
which, however carefully withheld, fired a long 
train of thundering reverberations when it shut 
at last, the room turned darker. 

As he fell a-musing in his chair alone, the 
healthy holly withered on the wall, and dropped 
— dead branches. 

As the gloom and shadow thickened behind 
him, in that place where it had been gathering 
so darkly, it took, by slow degrees, — or out of 
it there came, by some unreal, unsubstantial 
process, not to be traced by any human sense, 
— an awful likeness of himself! 

Ghastly and cold, colourless in its leaden face 
and hands, but with his features, and his bright 
eyes, and his grizzled hair, and dressed in the 
gloomy shadow of his dress, it came into its 
terrible appearance of existence, motionless. 


without a sound. As he leaned his arm upon 
the elbow of his chair, ruminating before the 
fire, it leaned upon the chair-back, close above 
him, with its appalling copy of his face looking 
where his face looked, and bearing the expres- 
sion his face bore. 

This, then, w^as the Something that had pass- 
ed and gone already. This was the dread com- 
panion of the haunted man ! 

It took, for some moments, no more apparent 
heed of him, than he of it. The Christmas 
Waits were playing somew’here in the distance, 
and, through his thoughtfulness, he seemed to 
listen to the music. It seemed to listen too. 

At length he spoke ; without moving or lift- 
ing up his face. 

“ Here again !” he said. 

“ Here again,” replied the Phantom. 

“ I see you in the fire,” said the haunted 
man ; “ I hear you in music, in the wind, in the 
dead stillness of the night.” 

The Phantom moved its head, assenting. 

“Why do you come, to haunt me thusi” 

“ I come as I am called,” replied the Ghost. 

“ No. Unbidden,” exclaimed the Chemist. 

“ Unbidden be it,” said the Spectre. “ It is 
enough. I am here.” 

Hitherto the light of the fire had shone on 
the two faces — if the dread lineaments behind 
the chair might be called a face — both address- 
ed towards it, as at first, and neither looking at 
the other. But, now, the haunted man turned 
suddenly, and stared upon the Ghost. The 
Ghost, as sudddl^ in its motion, passed to before 
the chair, and stared on him. 

The living man, and the animated image of 
himself dead, might so have looked, the one 
upon the other. An awful survey, in a lonely 
and remote part of an empty old pile of build- 
ing, on a winter night, with the loud wind go- 
ing by upon its journey of mystery — whence, or 
whither, no man knowing since the world be- 
gan — and the stars, in unimaginable millions, 
glittering through it, from eternal space, w'here 
the world’s bulk is as a grain, and its hoary ago 
is infancy. 

“ Look upon me !” said the Spectre. “ I am 
he, neglected in my youth, and miserably poor, 
who strove and suffered, and still strove and 
suffered, until I hewed out knowledge from the 
mine where it was buried, and made rugged 
steps thereof, for my worn feet to rest and rise 
on.” 

“ I am that man,” returned the Chemist. 

“ No mother’s self-denying love,” pursued 
the Phantom, “ no father’s counsel, aided me. 
A stranger came into my father's place when I 
was but a child, and I was easily an alien from 
my mother’s heart. My parents, at the best, 
were of that sort whose care soon ends, and 
whose duty is soon done ; who cast their off- 
spring loose, early, as birds do theirs ; and, if 
they do well, claim the merit ; and, if ill, the 
pity.” 

It paused and seemed to tempt and goad him 
with its look, and with the manner of its speech, 
and with its smile. 

“ I am he,” pursued the Phantom, “ who, in 
this struggle upward, found a friend. I made 
him— won him — bound him to me ! We worked 
together, side by side. All the love and confi- 
dence that in my earlier vouth had had no out- 


THE GHOST’S BARGAIN. 


9 


let, and found no expression, I bestowed on 
him ” 

“ Not all,” said Redlaw, hoarsely. 

“ No, not all,” returned the Phantom. “ I 
had a sister.” 

The haunted man, with his head resting on 
his hands, replied, “ I had !” The Phantom, 
with an evil smile, drew closer to the chair, and 
resting its chin upon its folded hands, its folded 
hands upon the back, and looking down into 
his face with searching eyes, that seemed in- 
stinct with fire, went on : 

“ Such glimpses of the light of home as I had 
ever known, had streamed from her. How 
young she was, how fair, how loving ! . I took 
her to the first poor roof that I was master of, 
and made it rich. She came into the darkness 
of my life, and made it bright. She is before 
me !” 

“ I saw her, in the fire, but now. I hear her 
in music, in the wind, in the dead stillness of 
the night,” returned the haunted man. 

“ Did he love herl” said the Phantom, echo- 
ing his contemplative tone. “ I think he did, 
once. I am sure he did. Better had she loved 
him less — less secretly, less dearly, from the 
shallower depths of a more divided heart !” 

“ Let me forget it !” said the Chemist, with 
an angry motion of his hand. “ Let me blot it 
from my memory !” 

The Spectre, without stirring and with its 
unwinking, cruel eyes still fixed upon his face, 
went on : 

“ A dream, like hers, stole upon my own life.” 

“ It did,” said Redlaw. 

“ A love, as like hers,” pursued the Phan- 
tom, “ as my inferior nature might cherish, 
arose in my own heart. I was too poor to bind 
its object to my fortune then, by any thread of 
promise or entreaty. I loved her far too well, 
to seek to do it. But, more than ever I had 
striven in my life, I strove to climb ! Only an 
inch gained, brought me something nearer to 
the height. I toiled up ! In the late pauses of 
my labour at that time — my sister (sweet com- 
panion !) still sharing with me the expiring em- 
bers and the cooling hearth — when day was 
breaking, what pictures of the future did I see !” 

“ I saw them, in the fire, but now,” he mur- 
mured. “ They come back to me in music, in 
the wind, in the dead stillness of the night, in 
the revolving years.” 

“ — Pictures of my own domestic life, in after- 
time, with her who was the inspiration of my 
toil. Pictures of my sigter, made the wife of 
my dear friend, on equal terms — for he had some 
inheritance, we none — pictures of our sobered 
age and mellowed happiness, and of the golden 
links, extending back so far, that should bind 
us. and our children, in a radiant garland,” said 
the Phantom. 

“ Pictures,” said the haunted man, “ that 
were delusions. Why is it my doom to re- 
member them too well !” 

“ Delusions,” echoed the Phantom in its 
changeless voice, and glaring on him with its 
changeless eyes. “For my friend (in whose 
brea^ my confidence was locked as in ray own), 
passing between me and the centre of the sys- 
tem of my hopes and struggles, won her to him- 
self, and shattered my frail universe. My sister, 
doubly dear, doublv devoted, doubly cheerful in 


my home, lived on to see me famous, and my 
old ambition so rewarded when its spring was 
broken, and then — ” 

“ Then died,” he interposed. “ Died, gentle 
as ever ; happy ; and with no concern but for 
her brother. Peace !” 

The Phantom watched him silently. 

“ Remembered I” said the haunted man, after 
a pause. “Yes. So well remembered, that 
even now, when years have passed, and nothing 
is more idle or more visionary to me than the 
boyish love so long outlived, I think of it with 
sympathy, as if it were a younger brother’s or 
a son’s. Sometimes I even wonder when her 
heart first inclined to him, and how it had been 
affected towards me. Not lightly once, I think. 
But that is nothing. Early unhappiness, a 
woundTrom a hand I loved and trusted, and a 
loss that nothing can replace, outlive such fan- 
cies.” 

“Thus,” said the Phantom, “I bear within 
me a Sorrow and a Wrong. Thus I prey upon 
myself Thus, memory is my curse ; and, if I 
could forget my sorrow and my wrong, I would !” 

“Mocker!” said the Chemist, leaping up, 
and making, with a wrathful hand, at the throat 
of his other self “ Why have I always that 
taunt in my ears I” 

“Forbear!” exclaimed the Spectre in an 
awful voice. “ Lay a hand on Me, and die !” 

He stopped midway, as if its words had par- 
alysed him, and stood^ looking on it It had 
glided from him ;,it had its arm raised high in 
warning ; and a smile passed over its unearth- 
ly features, as it reared its dark figure in tri- 
umph. 

“ If I eould forget my sorrow and wrong, I 
would,” the Ghost repeated. “ If I could for- 
get my sorrow and my wrong, I would !” 

“ Evil spirit of myself,” returned the haunted 
man, in a low, trembling tone, “ my life is dark- 
ened by that incessant whisper.” 

“ It is an echo,” said the Phantom. 

“ If it be an echo of my thoughts — as now, 
indeed, I know it is,” rejoined the haunted man, 
“ why should I, therefore, be tormented 1 It is 
not a selfish thought. I suffer it to range be- 
yond myself All men and women have their 
sorrows,— most of them their wrongs ; ingrati- 
tude, and sordid jealousy, and interest, beset- 
ting alt degrees of life. Who would not forget 
their sorrows and their wrongs 1” 

“ Who would not, truly, and be the happier 
and better for iti” said the Phantom. 

“ These revolutions of years, which we com- 
memorate,” proceeded Redlaw, “ what do they 
recall ! Are there are any minds in which they 
do not re- awaken some sorrow or some trouble 1 
What is the remembrance of the old man who 
was here to-night 1 A tissue of sorrow and 
trouble.” 

“ But common natures,” said the Phantom, 
with its evil smile upon its glassy face, “ unen- 
lightened minds, and ordinary spirits, do not 
feel or reason on these things like men of high- 
er cultivation and profounder thought.” 

“ Tempter,” answered Redlaw, “ whose hol- 
low look and voice I dread more than words 
can express, and from whom some dim fore- 
shadowing of greater fear is stealing over me 
while I speak, I hear again an echo of my own 
mind.” 


10 


THE HAUNTED MAN AND 


“Receive it as a proof that I am powerful,” 
returned the Ghost. “ Hear what I offer ! For- 
get the sorrow, wrong, and trouble you have 
known !” 

“ Forget them !” he repeated. 

“ I have the power to cancel their remem- 
brance — to leave but very faint, confused traces 
of them, that will die out soon,” returned the 
Spectre. “ Say ! Is it done 1” 

“ Stay !” cried the haunted man, arresting 
by a terrified gesture the uplifted hand. “ I 
tremble with distrust and doubt of you ; and 
the dim fear you cast upon me deepens into a 
nameless horror I can hardly bear. I would 
not deprive myself of any kindly reflection, or 
any sympathy that is good for me, or others. 
What shall I lose, if I assent to this 1 What 
else will pass from my remembrance 1” 

“ No knowledge ; no result of study ; nothing 
but the intertwisted chain of feelings and asso- 
ciations, each in its turn dependent on, and 
nourished by, the banished recollections. Those 
will go.” 

“ Are they so many 1” said the haunted man, 
reflecting in alarm. 

“ They have been wont to show themselves 
in the fire, in music, in the wind, in the dead 
stillness of the night, in the revolving years,” 
returned the Phantom scornfully. 

“ In nothing else I” 

The Phantom held its peace. 

But having stood before him, silent, for a 
little while, it moved towards the fire ; then 
stopped. 

“ Decide !” it said, “ before the opportunity 
is lost !” 

“ A moment ! I call Heaven to witness,” 
said the agitated man, “ that I have never been 
a hater of my kind, — never morose, indifferent, 
or hard, to anything around me. If, living here 
alone, I have made too much of all that was 
and might have been, and too little of what is, 
the evil, I believe, has fallen on me, and not on 
others. But, if there were poison in my body, 
should I not, possessed of antidotes and knowl- 
edge how to use them, use them 1 If there be 
poison on my mind, and through this fearful 
shadow I can cast it out, shall I not cast it outi” 

“ Say,” said the Spectre, “ is it done 1” 

“ A moment longer !” he answered hurriedly. 
“ I would forget it if I could ! Have I thought 
that, alone, or has it been the thought of thou- 
sands upon thousands, generation after genera- 
tion 1 All human memory is fraught with sor- 
row and trouble. My memory is as the memo- 
ry of other men, but other men have not this 
choice. Yes, I close the bargain. Yes ! I 
WILL forget my sorrow, wrong, and trouble !” 

“ Say,” said the Spectre, “is it donel” 

“ It is !” 

It is. And take this with you, man whom 
I here renounce ! The gift that I have given, 
you shall give again, go where you will. With- 
out recovering yourself the power that you have 
yielded up, you shall henceforth destroy its like 
in all whom you approach. Your wisdom has 
discovered that the memory of sorrow, wrong, 
and trouble is the lot of all mankind, and that 
mankind would be the happier, in its other 
memories, without it. Go ! Be its benefactor ! 
Freed from such remembrance, from this hour, 
carry involuntarily the blessing of such free- 


dom with you. Its diffusion is inseparable and 
inalienable from you. Go ! Be happy in the 
good you have won, and in the good you 
do!” 

The Phantom, which had held its bloodless 
hand above him while it spoke, as if in some 
unholy invocation, or some ban ; and which had 
gradually advanced its eyes so close to his, that 
he could see how they did not participate in the 
terrible smile upon its face, but were a fixed, 
unalterable, steady horror ; melted from before 
hipn, and was gone. 

As he stood rooted to the spot, possessed by 
fear and wonder, and imagining he heard re- 
peated in melancholy echoes, dying away faint- 
er and fainter, the words, “ Destroy its like in 
all whom you approach!” a shrill cry reached 
his ears. It came, not from the passages be- 
yond the door, but from another part of the old 
building, and sounded like the cry of some one 
in the dark who had lost the way. 

He looked confusedly upon his hands and 
limbs, as if to be assured of his identity, and 
then shouted in reply, loudly and wildly : for 
there was a strangeness and terror upon him, 
as if he too were lost. 

The cry responding, and being nearer, he 
caught up the lamp, and raised a heavy curtain 
in the wall, by which he was accustomed to 
pass inta and out of the theatre where he lec- 
tured, which adjoined his room. Associated 
with youth and animation, and a high amphi- 
theatre of faces which his entrance charmed to 
interest in a moment, it was a ghostly place 
when all this life was faded out of it, and stared 
upon him like an emblem of Death. 

“ Halloa !” he cried. “ Halloa ! This way ! 
Come to the light !” When, as he held the cur 
tain with one hand, and with the other raised 
the lamp and tried to pierce the gloom that fill- 
ed the place, something rushed past him into 
the room like a wild- cat, and crouched down in 
a corner. ^ 

“ What i-s it 1” he said, hastily. 

He might have asked “What is if?” even had 
he seen it well, as presently he did, when he 
stood looking at it, gathered up in its corner. 

A bundle of tatters, held together by a hand, 
in size and form almost an infant’s, but, in its 
greedy, desperate little clutch, a bad old man’s 
A face rounded and smoothed by some half- 
dozen years, but pinched and twisted by the ex 
periences of a life. Bright eyes, but not youth 
fill. Naked feet, beautiful in their childish deli 
cacy — ugly in the blood and dirt that cracked 
upon them. A baby savage, a young monster, 
a child who had never been a child, a creature 
who might live to take the outward form of man, 
but who, within, would live and perish a mere 
beast. 

Used, already, to be worried and hunted like 
a beast, the boy crouched down as he was look- 
ed at, and looked back again, and interposed 
his arm to ward off the expected blow. 

“ I’ll bite,” he said, “ if you hit me !” 

The time had been, and not many minutes 
since, when such a sight as this would have 
wrung the Chemist’s heart. He looked upon it 
now, coldly ; but, with a heavy effort to re- 
member something — he did not know what — he 
asked the boy what he did there, and whence 
1 he came. 


THE GHOST’S BARGAIN. 


11 


“Where’s the woman 1” he replied. “ I want | 
to find the woman.” 

, “Who!” 

“The woman. Her that brought me here, 
and set me by the large fire. She was so long 
gone, that I went to look for her, and lost my- 
self. I don’t want you. I want the woman.” 

He made a spring, so suddenly, to get away, 
that the dull sound of his naked feet upon the 
floor was near the curtain, when Redlaw caught 
him by his rags. 

“ Come ! you let me go !” muttered the boy, 
struggling, and clenching his teeth. “ I’ve done 
nothing to you. Let me go, will you, to the 
woman !” 

“ That is not the way. There is a nearer 
one,” said Redlaw, detaining him, in the same 
blank effort to remember some association that 
ought, of right, to bear upon this monstrous ob- 
ject. “ What is your name !” 

“ Got none.” 

“ Where do you live !” 

“ Live ! What’s that !” 

The boy shook his hair from his eyes to look 
at him for a moment, and then, twisting round 
his legs and wrestling with him, broke again 
into his repetition of “You let me go, will you! 

I want to find the woman.” 

The Chemist led him to the door. “ This 
way,” he said, looking at him still confusedly, 
but with repugnance and avoidance, growing 
out of his coldness. “ I’ll take you to her.” 

The sharp eyes in the child’s head, wander- 
ing round the room, lighted on the table where 
the remnants of the dinner were. 

“ Give me some of that !” he said, covet- 
ously. 

“ Has she not fed you!” 

“ I shall be hungry again to-morrow, sha’n’t 
I ! Ain’t I hungry every day !” 

Finding himself released, he bounded at the 
table like some small animal of prey, and hug- 
ging to his breast bread and meat, and his own 
rags, all together, said ; 

“ There ! Now take me to the woman !” 

As the Chemist, with a new-born dislike to 
touch him, sternly motioned him to follow, and 
was going out of the door, he trembled and 
stopped. 

“ The gift that I have given, you shall give 
again, go where you will !” 

The Phantom’s words were blowing in the 
wind, and the wind blew chill upon him. 

“ I’ll not go there, to-night,” he murmured 
faintly. “I’ll go nowhere to-night. Boy, straight 
down this long-arched passage, and past the 
great dark door into the yard, — you will see the 
fire shining on a window there.” 

“ The woman’s fire !” inquired the boy. 

He nodded, and the naked feet had sprung 
away. He came back with his lamp, locked 
his door hastily, and sat down in his chair, cov- 
ering his face like one who was frightened at 
himself. 

For now he was, indeed, alone. Alone, alone. 


CHAPTER II. 

THE GIFT DIFFUSED. 

A SMALL man sat in a small parlour, parti- 
tioned off from a small shop by a small screen. 


pasted all over with small scraps of news- 
papers. In company with the small man, was 
almost any amount of small children you may 
please to name — at least it seemed so ; they 
made, in that very limited sphere of action, 
such an imposing effect, in point of numbers. 

Of these small fry, tw’o had, by some strong 
machinery, been got into bed in a corner, 
where they might have reposed snugly enough 
in the sleep of innocence, but for a constitu- 
tional propensity to keep awake, and also to 
scuffle in and out of bed. The immediate oc- 
casion of these predatory dashes at the waking 
world, was the construction of an oyster-.shell 
wall in a corner, by two other youths of tender 
age ; on which fortification the two in bed 
made harassing descents (like those accursed 
Piets and Scots who beleaguer the early his- 
torical studies of most young Britons) and then 
withdrew to their Own territory. 

In addition to the stir attendant on these in- 
roads, and the retorts of the invaded, who pur- 
sued hotly, and made lunges at the bed-clothes 
under which the marauders took refuge, another 
little boy, in another little bed, contributed his 
mite of confusion to the family stock, by casting 
his boots upon the waters ; in other words, by 
launching these and several small objects, in- 
offensive in themselves, though of hard sub- 
stance considered as missiles, at the disturbers 
of his repose — who were not slow to return 
these compliments. 

Besides which, another little boy — the biggest 
there, but still little — was tottering to and fro, 
bent on one side, and considerably affected in 
his knees by the weight of a large baby, which 
he was supposed, by a fiction that obtains 
sometimes in sanguine families, to he hushing 
to sleep. But oh ! the inexhaustible regions 
of contemplation and watchfulness into which 
this baby’s eyes were then only beginning to 
compose themselves to stare, over his uncon- 
scious shoulder ! 

It was a very Moloch of a baby, on whose 
insatiate altar the whole existence of this par- 
ticular young brother was offered up a daily 
sacrifice. Its personality may be said to have 
consisted in its never being quiet, in any one 
place, for five consecutive minutes, and never 
going to sleep when required. “ Tetterby’s 
baby” was as well known in the neighborhood 
as the postman or the pot-boy. It roved from 
door-step to door-step, in the arms of little 
Johnny Tetterby, and lagged heavily at the 
rear of troops of juveniles who followed the 
Tumblers or the Monkey, and came up, all on 
one side, a little too late for every thing that 
was attractive, from Monday morning until 
Saturday night. Wherever childhood congre- 
gated to play, there was little Moloch making 
Johnny fag and toil. Wherever Johnny desired 
to stay, little Moloch became fractious, and 
w'ould not remain. Whenever Johnny wanted 
to go out, Moloch was asleep, and must be 
watched. Whenever Johnny wanted to stay 
at home, Moloch was awake, and must be 
taken out. Yet Johnny was verily pursuaded 
that it was a faultless baby, without its peer in 
the realm of England, and was quite content to 
catch meek glimpses of things in general from 
behind its skirts, or over its limp flagging bon- 
net, and to go staggering about with it like a 


12 


THE HAUNTED MAN AND 


very little porter with a very large parcel, u1)ich 
was not direcied to any body, and could never 
be delivered any where. 

The small man who sat in the small parlour, 
making fruitless attempts to read his news- 
paper peaceably in the midst of this disturbance, 
was the father of the family, and the chief of 
the firm described in the inscription over the 
little shop front, by the name and title of A. 
Tetterby and Co., Newsmen. Indeed, strictly 
speaking, he was the only personage answering 
to that designation, as Co. was a mere poetical 
abstraction, altogether baseless and impersonal. 

Tetterby's was the corner shop in Jerusalem 
Buildings. There w’as a good show of litera- 
ture in the window, chirfiy consisting of picture- 
new'spapers out oi date, and serial pirates, and 
footpads. Walking-sticks, likewise, and mar- 
bles, were included in the stock in trade. It 
had Once extended into the light confectionary 
line, but it would seem that those elegancies 
of life were not in demand about Jerusalem 
Buildings, for nothing connected with that 
branch of commerce remained in the window, 
except a sort of small glass lantern containing a 
languishing mass of bull’s-eyes, w^hich had 
melted in the summer and congealed in the 
winter until all hope of ever getting them out, or 
of eating them without eating the lantern too, 
was gone for ever. Tetterby’s had tried its 
hand at several things. It had once made a 
feeble little dart at the toy business ; for, in 
another lantern, there was a heap of minute 
wax dolls, all sticking together upside down, in 
the direst confusion, with their feet on one 
another’s heads, and a precipitate of broken 
arms and legs at the bottom. It had made a 
move in the millinery direction, which a few 
dry, wiry bonnet shapes remained in a corner 
of the window to attest. It had fancied that a 
living might lie hidden in the tobacco trade, and 
had stuck up a representation of a native of 
each of the three integral portions of the British 
empire, in the act of consuming that fragrant 
weed ; with a poetic legend attached, importing 
that united in one cause they sat and joked, one 
chewed tobacco, one took snuff, one smoked ; 
but nothing seemed to have come of it — except 
flies. Time had been when it had put a forlorn 
trust in imitative jewellry, for in one pane of 
glass there was a card of cheap seals, and 
another of pencil cases, and a mysterious black 
amulet of inscrutable intention labelled nine- 
pence. But, to that hour, Jerusalem Buildings 
had bought none of them. In short, Tetterby’s 
had tried so hard to get a livelihood out of 
Jerusalem Buildings in one way or other, and 
appeared to have done so indifferently in all, 
that the best position in the firm was too evi- 
dently Co.’s ; Co., as a bodiless creation, being 
untroubled with the vulgar inconveniences of 
hunger and thirst, being chargeable neither to 
the poor’s-rates nor the assessed taxes, and 
having no young family to provide for. 

Tetterby himself, however, in his little par- 
lour, as already mentioned, having the presence 
of a young family impressed upon his mind in 
a manner too clamorous to be disregarded, or 
to comport with the quiet perusal of a news- 
paper, laid down his paper, wheeled, in his dis- 
traction, a few' times round the parlour, like an 
undecided carrier-pigeon, made an ineffectual 


rush at one <»r iwo flying little figures in bed- 
gowns that skimmed past him, and then, bear- 
ing suddenly down upon the only unoffending 
member of the family, boxed the ears ol little 
Moloch’s nurse. 

“ You bad hoy !’> said Mr. Tetterby, “ haven't 
you any leeljng Ibr your poor father alter ihe 
fatigues an ’ anxieties of a hard winter's day, 
since five o'clock in the morning, but you must 
wither his rest, and corrode his latest intelli- 
gence, with your vvicious tricks Isn't it 
enough, sir, that youf brother ’Dolphus is toiling 
and moiling in the fog and cold, and you rolling 
in the lap of luxury with a — with a baby, and 
every thing you can wish for,” said Mr. Tet- 
terby, heaping this up as a great climax of 
blessings, •* but you must make a wilderness of 
home, and maniacs of your parents'? Must 
you, Johnny? Hey?” At each interrogation, 
Mr. Tetterby made a feint of boxing his ears 
again, but thought better of it, and held his 
hand. 

“Oh, father!” whimpered Johnny, “when I 
wasn’t doing any thing. I'm sure, but taking 
such care of Sally, and getting her to sleep. 
Oh, father !” 

“ I w'ish my little woman w'ould come home!” 
said Mr. Tetterby, relenting and repenting, “ 1 
only W’ish my little woman would come home ! 
I ain’t fit to deal with ’em. They make my 
head go round, and get the better of me. Oh, 
Johnny ! Isn’t it enough that your dear mother 
has provided you with that sweet sister !” in- 
dicating Moloch ; “ Isn’t it enough that you 
were seven boys before, without a ray of gal, 
and that your dear mother went through what 
she did go through, on purpose that you might 
all of you have a little sister, but must you so 
behave yourself as to malie my head sw'irn ?” 

Softening more and more, as his own tender 
feelings and those of his injured son w’ere 
worked on, Mr. Tetterby concluded by em- 
bracing him, and immediately breaking away 
to catch one of the real delinquents. A reas- 
onably good start occurring, he succeeded, after 
a short but smart run, and some rather severe 
cross-country w’ork under and over the bed- 
steads, and in and out among the intricacies 
of the chairs, in capturing this infant, w'hom he 
condignly punished, and bore to bed. This 
example had a powerful, and apparently mes- 
meric influence on him of the boots, who in- 
stantly fell into a deep sleep, though he had 
been, but a moment before, broad awake, and iu 
the highest possible leather. Nor was it lost 
upon the tw’o young architects, who retired to 
bed, in an adjoining closet, with great privacy 
and speed. The comrade of the Intercepted 
One also shrinking into his nest with similar 
discretion, Mr. Tetterby, when he paused for 
breath, found himself unexpectedly in a scene 
of peace. 

“ My little woman herself,” said Mr. Tetterby, 
wiping his flushed face, “could hardly have done 
it better ! I only wish my little woman had had 
it to do, I do indeed !” 

Mr. Tetterby sought upon his screen for a 
passage appropriate to be impressed upon his 
children’s minds on the occasion, and read the 
follovving. 

“ ‘ It is an undoubted fact that all remarkable 
men have had rema-kable mothers, and have 


THE GHOST’S BARGAIN. 


respected them in after life as their best friends.’ 
Think of your own remarkable mother, my 
boys,” said Mr Teiterby, “and know her value 
while she is still among you !” 

He sat down again in his chair by the. fire, 
and composed himself, cross-legged, over his 
newspaper. 

“ Let anybody, I don’t care w'ho it is, get out 
of bed again,” said Tetlerby, as a general pro- 
clamation, delivered in a very soft-hearted man- 
ner, “ and astonishment w'ill be the portion of 
that respected contemporary ! ” — which expres- 
sion Mr. Tetterby selected from his screen. 

‘ Johnny, my child, take care of your only sister, 
Sallv ; for she’s the brightest gem that ever 
sparkled on your early brow.” 

Johnny sat down on a little stool, and devot- 
edly crushed himself beneath the weight of 
Moloch. 

“Ah, what a gift that baby is to you, John- 
ny!” said his father, “and how thankful you 
ought to be ! ‘It is not generally known,’ John- 
ny,” he w’as now referring to the screen again, 
“ ‘ but it is a fact ascertained, by accurate cal- 
culations, that the following immense per cent- 
age of babies never attain to two years old ; 
that is to say — ’ ” 

“ Oh, don’t, father, please !” cried Johnny. 
“ I can’t bear it, when I think of Sally.” 

Mr. Tetterby desisting, Johnny, with a pro- 
founder sense of his trust, wiped his eyes, and 
bushed his sister. 

“Your brother ’Dolphus,” said his father, 
poking the fire, “is late to-night, Johnny, and 
W'ill come home like a lump of ice. What’s 
got your precious mother I” 

“Here’s mother, and ’Dolphus, too, father !” 
exclaimed Johnny, “ I think.” 

“ You’re right,” returned his father, listening. 
“Yes, that’s the footstep of my little wom- 
an.” 

The process of induction, by which Mr. Tet- 
terby had come to the conclusion that his wife 
was a little woman, w'as his own secret. She 
w’ould have made two editions of himself, very 
easily. Considered as an individual, she was 
rather remarkable for being robust and portly ; 
but considered with reference to her husband, 
her dimensions became magnificent. Nor did 
they assume a less imposing proportion, when 
studied with reference to the size of her seven 
sons, who were but diminutive. In the case 
of Sally, however, Mrs. Tetlerby had asserted 
herself, at last ; as nobody knew better than 
the victim Johnny, w'ho w'eighed and measured 
that exacting idol every hour in the day. 

Mrs. Tetterby, w’ho had been marketing, and 
carried a basket, threw back her bonnet and 
shawl, and sitting down, fatigued, commanded 
Johnny to bring his sweet charge to her straight- 
way, for a kiss. Johnny having complied, and 
gone back to his stool, and again crushed him- 
self, Master Adolphus Tetterby, who had by 
this time unwound his Torso out of a pris«iatic 
comforter, apparently interminable, requested 
the same favor. Johnny having again complied, 
and again gone back to his stool, and again 
crushed himself, Mr. Tetterby, struck by a sud- 
den thought, preferred the same claim on his 
own parental part. The satisfaction of this 
third desire completely exhausted the sacrifice, 
who had hardly breath enough left to get back 


13 

to his stool, crush himself again, and pant at 
his relations. 

“ Whatever you do, Johnny,” said Mrs. 
Tetterby, shaking her head, “ take care of 
her, or never look your mother in the face 
again.” 

“Nor your brother,” said Adolphus. 

“ Nor your father, Johnny,” added Mr. Tet- 
terby. 

Johnny, much affected by this conditional 
renunciation of him, looked down at Moloch’s 
eyes to see that they were all right, so far, and 
skilfully patted her back (which was upper- 
most), and rocked her with his foot. 

Are you w et, ’Dolphus, my boy I” said his 
father. “ Come and take my chair, and dry 
yourself.” 

“ No, father, thankee,” said Adolphus, 
smoothing himself down w ith his hands. “ I 
an’t very wet, I don’t think. Does my face 
shine much, father I” 

Well, it does look waxy, my boy,” returned 
Mr. Tetterby. 

“ It’s the weather, father,” said Adolphus, 
polishing his cheeks on the w'orn sleeve of his 
jacket. “ What with rain, and sleet, and wind, 
and snow, and fog, my face gets quite brought 
out into a rash some times. And shines, it 
does — oh, don’t it, though !” 

Master Adolphus was also in the newspaper 
line of life, being employed, by a more thriving 
firm than his father and Co., to vend newspapers 
at a railway station, where his chubby little 
person, like a shabbily-disguised Cupid, and his 
shrill little voice (he was not much more than ten 
years old), were as well known as the hoarse 
panting of the locomotives, running in and out. 
His juvenility might have been at some loss for 
a harmless outlet, in this early application to 
traffic, but for a fortunate discovery he made 
of a means of entertaing himself, and of dividing 
the long day into stages of interest, without 
neglecting business. This ingenious invention, 
remarkable, like many great discoveries, for its 
simplicity, consisted in varying the first vowel 
in the word “ paper,” and substituting, in its 
stead, at different periods of the day, all the 
other vowels in grammatical succe.ssion. Thus, 
before day-light in the winter-time, he went to 
and fro, in his little oilskin cap and cape, and 
his big comforter, piercing the heavy air w'ith 
his cry of “ Morn-ing Pa-per !” which, about an 
hour before noon, changed to “Morn-ing Pep- 
per !” which, at about two, changed to “ Morn- 
ing Pip-per!” which, in a couple of hours, 
changed to “ Morn-ing Pop-per !” and so de- 
clined with the sun into “ Eve-ning Pup-per!” 
to the great relief and comfort of this young 
gentleman’s spirits. 

Mrs. Tetterby, his lady-mother, who had been 
sitting with her bonnet and shawl thrown back, 
as aforesaid, thoughtfully turning her wedding 
ring round and round upon her finger, now rose, 
and divesting herself of her out-of-door attire, 
began to lay the cloth for supper. 

“ Ah, dear me, dear me, dear me !” said Mrs. 
Teiterby. “That’s the way the world goes !” 

“ Which is the way the world goes, my 
dear'^” asked Mr. Tetterby, looking round. 

“Oh, nothing,” said Mrs. Tetterby. 

Mr. Tetterby elevated his eyebrows, folded 
his newspaper afresh, and carried his eyes up 


14 


THE HAUNTED MAN AND 


it, and down it, and across it, but was wander- 
ing in his attention, and not reading it, 

Mrs. Telterby, at the same time, laid the 
cloth, but rather as if she were punishing the 
table than preparing the family supper; bitting 
it unnecessarily hard with the knives and forks, 
slapping it with the plates, dinting it with the 
salt cellar, and coming heavily down upon it 
with the loaf. 

“Ah, dear me, dear me, dear me!” said 
Mrs. Tetterby. “ That’s the way the world 
goes !” 

“My|duck,” returned her husband, looking 
round again, “ you said that before. Which 
is the way the world goes 1” , 

“ 0, nothing 1” said Mrs. Tetterby. 

“ Sophia !” remonstrated her husband, “you 
said that before, too.” 

“Well, I’ll say it again if you like,” returned 
Mrs. Tetterby. “ Oh nothing — there I And 
again if you like, oh nothing — there ! And 
again if you like, oh nothing — now then 1” 

Mr. Tetterby brought his eye to bear upon 
the partner of his bosom, and said, in mild 
astonishment : 

“ My little woman, what has put you out 1” 

“I’m sure I don’t know,” she retorted. 
“ Don’t ask me. Who said I was put out at 
all ■? I never did.” ^ 

Mr. Tetterby gave 'up the perusal of his 
newspaper as a bad job, and, taking a slow 
walk across the room, with his hands behind 
him, and his shoulders raised — his gait accord- 
ing perfectly with the resignation of his man- 
ner — addressed himself to his two eldest off- 
spring. 

“ Your supper will be ready in a minute, 
’Dolphus,” said Mr. Tetterby. “Your mother 
has been out in the wet, to the cook’s shop, to 
buy it. It was very good of your mother so to 
do. You shall get some supper too, very soon, 
Johnny. Your mother’s pleased with you, my 
man, for being so attentive to your precious 
sister.” 

Mrs. Tetterby, without any remark, but with 
a decided subsidence of her animosity towards 
the ta*ble, finished her preparations, and took, 
from her ample basket, a substantial slab of 
hot pease pudding wrapped in paper, and a 
basin covered with a saucer, which, on being 
uncovered, sent forth an odour so agreeable, 
that the three pair of eyes in the two beds 
opened wide, and fixed themselves upon the 
banquet. Mr. Tetterby, without regarding this 
tacit invitation to be seated, stood repeating 
slowly, “ Yes, yes, your supper will be ready 
in a minute, ’Dolphus — your mother went out 
in the w^et, to the cook’s shop, to buy it. It 
was very good of your mother so to do” — until 
Mrs. Tetterby, who had been exhibiting sundry 
tokens of contrition behind him, caught him 
round the neck, and wept. 

“0, ’Dolphus!” said Mrs. Tetterby, “how 
could I go and behave so !” 

This reconciliation affected Adolphus the 
younger and Johnny to that degree, that they 
both, as with one accord, raised a dismal cry, 
which had the effect of immediately shutting 
up the round eyes in the beds, and utterly 
routing the two remaining little Tetterbys, just 
then stealing in from the adjoining closet to 
see what was going on in the eating way. 


“I am sure, ’Dolphus,” sobbed Mrs. Tetter- 
by, “ coming home, 1 had no more idea than a 
child unborn — .” 

Mr. Tetterby seemed to dislike this figure of 
speech, and observed, “ Say than the baby, my 
dear.” 

“ — Had no more idea than the baby,” said 
Mrs. Telterby. — “ Johnny, don’t look at me, 
but look at her, or she’ll fall out of your lap 
and he hilled, and then you’ll die in agonies of 
a broken heart, and serve you right. — No more 
idea I hadn’t than that darling, of being cross 
when I came home; but somehow, ’Dolphus 
— .” Mrs. Tetterby paused, and again turned 
her wedding-ring round and round upon her 
finger. 

“ I see !” said Mr. Tetterby. “ I under- 
stand ! My little woman was put out. Hard 
times, and hard weather, and hard work, make 
it trying now and then. I see, bless your soul ! 
No wonder! ’Dolf, my man,” continued Mr. 
Tetterby^ exploring the basin with a fork, 
“ here’s your mother been and bought, at the 
cook’s shop, besides pease pudding, a whole 
knuckle of lovely roast leg of pork, with lots 
of crackling left upon it, and with seasoning 
gravy and mustard quite unlimited. Hand in 
your plate, my boy, and begin w'hile it's sim- 
mering. 

Master Adolphus, needing no second sum- 
mons, received his portion with eyes rendered 
moist by appetite, and withdrawing to his par- 
ticular stool, fell upon his supper tooth and 
nail. Johnny was not forgotten, but received 
his rations on bread, lest he should, in a flush 
of gravy, trickle any on the baby. He was 
required, for similar reasons, to keep his pud- 
ding, when not on active service, in his pocket. 

There might have been more pork on the 
knucklebone, — which knucklebone the carver at 
the cook’s shop had assuredly not forgotten in 
carving for previous customers, — but there was 
no stint of seasoning, and that is an accessory 
dreamily suggesting pork, and pleasantly cheat- 
ing the sense of taste. The pease pudding, 
too, the gravy and mustard, like the Eastern 
rose in respect of the nightingale, if they were 
not absolutely pork, had lived near it ; so, upon 
the whole, there was the flavour of a middle- 
sized pig. It was irresistible to the Tetterbys 
in bed, who, though professing to slumber 
peacefully, crawled out when unseen by their 
parents, and silently appealed to their brothers 
for any gastronomic token of fraternal affec- 
tion. They, not hard of heart, presenting 
scraps in return, it resulted that a party of 
light skirmishers in night-gowms w'ere career- 
ing about the parlour all through supper, which 
harassed Mr. Tetterby exceedingly, and once 
or twice imposed upon him the necessity of a 
charge, before which these guerilla troops 
retired in all directions and in great confusion. 

Mrs. Tetterby did not enjoy her supper. 
There seemed to be something on Mrs. Tet- 
lerby’s mind. At one time she laughed with- 
out reason, and at another time she cried 
without reason, and at last she laughed and 
cried together in a manner so very unreason- 
able that ber husband was confounded. 

“My little woman,” said Mr. Tetterby, “if 
the world goes that way, it appears to go the 
1 wrong way, and to choke you.” 


THE GribST’S BARGAIN. 


“ Give me a drop of water,” said Mrs. Tet- 
terby, struggling with herself, “ and don’t 
speak to me for the present, or take any 
notice of me. Don’t do it !” 

Mr. Tetterby having administered the water, 
turned suddenly on the unlucky Johnny (who 
was full of sympathy), and demanded why he 
was w'allowing there, in gluttony and idleness, 
instead of coming forward with the baby, that 
the sight of her might revive his mother. 
Johnny immediately approached, borne down 
by its weight ; but Mrs. Tetterby holding out 
her hand to signify that she was not in a condi- 
tion to bear that trying appeal to her feelings, 
he was interdicted from advancing another 
inch on pain of perpetual hatred from all his 
* dearest connections ; and accordingly retired 
to his stool again, and crushed himself as 
before. 

After a pause, Mrs. Tetterby said she was 
better now, and began to laugh. 

“ My little woman,” said her husband, 
dubiously, “are you quite sure you’re better 1 
Or are you, Sophia, about to break out in a 
fresh direction I” 

“No, ’Dolphus, no,” replied his wife. “ I’m 
quite myself.” With that, settling her hair, 
and pressing the palms of her hands upon her 
eyes, she laughed again. 

“ What a wicked fool I was, to think so for 
a moment !” said Mrs. Tetterby. “ Come 
nearer, ’Dolphus, and let me ease my mind, and 
tell you what I mean. Let me tell you all 
about it.” 

Mr. Tetterby bringing his chair closer, Mrs. 
Tetterby laughed again, gave him a hug, and 
wiped her eyes. 

“You know ’Dolphus, my dear,” said Mrs. 
Tetterby, “ that when I was single, I might 
have given myself away in several directions. 
At one time, four after me at once ; two of 
them were sons of Mars.” 

“ We're all sons of Ma’s, my dear,” said Mr. 
Tetterby, “ jointly with Pa’s.” 

“1 don’t mean that,” replied his wife, “I 
mean soldiers — serjeants.” 

“ Oh !” said Mr. Tetterby. 

“ Well, ’Dolphus, I’m sure I never think of 
such things now, to regret them ; and I’m sure 
I’ve got as good a husband, and would do as 
much to prove that I was fond of him, as — ” 

“ As any little woman in the world,” said 
Mr. Tetterby. “ Very good. Very good.” ** 

If Mr. Tetterby had been ten feet high, he 
could not have expressed a gentler consideration 
for Mrs. Tetterby’s fairy-like stature ; and if 
Mrs. Tetterby had been two feet high, she 
could not have felt it more appropriately her 
due. 

“ But you see, ’Dolphus,” said Mrs. Tetterby, 
“ This being Christmas-time, when all people 
who can, make holiday, and when all people 
who have got money, like to spend some, I did, 
somehow, get a little out of sorts when I was 
in the streets just now. There was so many 
things to be sold — such delicious things to eat 
such fine things to look at, such delightful things 
to have — and there was so much calculating 
and calculating necessary, before I durst lay 
out a sixpence for the commonest thing ; and 
the basket was so large, and wanted so much 
in it ; and my stock of money was so s-mall, and 


15 

would go such a little way ; — ^you hate me, 
don’t you, ’Dolphus P’ 

“Not quite,” said Mr. Tetterby, “as yet.” 

“ Well ! I’ll tell you the whole truth,” pur- 
sued his wife, penitently, “ and then perhaps 
you will. I felt all this, so much, when I was 
trudging about in the cold, and when I saw a lot 
of other calculating faces and large baskets 
trudging about, too, that I began to think wheth- 
er I mightn’t have done better, and been hap- 
pier, if — I — hadn’t — ” the wedding ring went 
round again, and Mrs. Tetterby shook her 
downcast head as she turned it. 

“ I see,” said her husband quietly ; “ if you 
hadn’t married at all, or if you had married 
somebody else 1” 

“Yes,” sobbed Mrs. Tetterby, “That’s 
really what I thought. Do you hate me now, 
’Dolphus 1” 

“ Why no,” said Mr. Tetterby, “ I don’t find 
that I do, as yet,” 

Mrs. Tetterby gave him a thankful kiss, and 
went on. 

“ I begin to hope you won’t, now, ’Dolphus, 
though I am afraid I haven’t told you the worst. 

I can’t think what came over me. I don’t know 
whether I was ill, or mad, or what I was, but I 
couldn’t call up anything that seemed to bind 
us to each other, or to reconcile me to my for- 
tune. All the pleasures and enjoyments wc had 
ever had — they seemed so poor and insignifi- 
cant, I hated them. I could have trodden on 
them. And I could think of nothing else, ex- 
cept our being poor, and the number of mouths 
there were at home.” 

“Well, well, my dear,” said Mr. Tetterby, 
shaking her hand encouragingly, “ that’s truth, 
after all. We are poor, and there are a number 
of mouths at home here.” 

“Ah! but, Dolf, Dolf!” cried his wife, lay- 
ing her hands upon his neck, “ my good, kind, 
patient fellow, when I had been at home a very 
little while — how different I Oh, Dolf dear, 
how different it was ! I felt as if there was a 
rush of recollection on me, all at once, that soft- 
ened my hard heart, and filled it up till it was 
bursting. All our struggles for a livelihood, all 
our cares and wants since we have been mar- 
ried, all the times of sickness, all the hours of 
watching, we have ever had, by one another, 
or by the children, seemed to speak to me, and 
say that they had made us one, and that I never 
might have been, or could have been, or would 
have been, any other than the wife and mother 
I am. Then, the cheap enjoyments that I could 
have trodden on so cruelly, got to be so precious 
to me — Oh so priceless, and dear ! — that I 
couldn’t bear to think how much I had wronged 
them ; and I said, and say again a hundred 
times, how could I ever behave so, ’Dolphus, 
how could I ever have the heart to do it !” 

The good woman, quite carried away by her 
honest tenderness and remorse, w’as weeping 
with all her heart, when she started up with a 
scream, and ran behind her husband. Her cry 
was so terrified, that the children started from 
their sleep and from their beds, and clung about 
her. Nor did her gaze belie her voice, as she 
pointed to a pale man in a black cloak who had 
come into the room. 

“ Look at that man ! Look there ! What 
does he want 1” 


16 


THE HAUNTED MAN AND 


“My dear,” returned her husband, “I’ll ask 
him if you’ll let me go. What’s the matter 1 
How you shake !” 

I saw him in the street, when I was out 
just now. He looked at me, and stood near 
me. I am afraid of him.” 

“ Afraid of him ! Whyl” 

“ I don’t know why — I— stop! husband!” for 
he was going toward the stranger. 

She had one hand pressed upon her forehead, 
and one upon her breast ; and there was a 
peculiar fluttering all over her, and a hurried, 
unsteady motion of her eyes, as if she had lost 
something. 

“ Are you ill, my dear?” 

“ What is it that is going from me again I” 
she muttered, in a low voice. “ What is this 
that is going away 1” 

Then she abruptly answered: “Iin No, I 
am quite well,” and stood looking vacantly at 
the floor. 

Her husband, who had not been altogether 
free from the infection of her fear at first, and 
whom the present strangeiu'ss of her manner 
did not tend to reassure, addressed himself to 
the pale visitor in the black cloak, who stood 
still, and whose eyes were bent upon the 
ground. 

“ What may be your pleasure, sir,” he asked, 
“ with us 

“I fear that my coming in unperceived,” re- 
turned the visitor, “has alarmed you ; but you 
were talking, and did not hear me.” 

“ My little woman says — perhaps you heard 
her say it,” returned Mr. Telterby, “ that it’s 
not the first time you have alarmed her to- 
night.” 

“ I am sorry for it. I remember to have 
observed her, for a few moments only, in the 
street. I had no intention of frightening her.” 

As he raised his eyes in speaking, she raised 
hers. It was extraordinary to see what dread 
she had of him, and with what dread he ob- 
' served it — and yet how narrowly and closely. 

“My name,” he said, “is Redlaw. I come 
from the old college hard by. A young gentle- 
man who is a student there, lodges in your 
house, does he notl” 

“ Mr. Denham 1” said Tetterby. 

“ Yes.” 

It was a natural action, and so. slight as to 
be hardly noticeable ; but the little man, before 
speaking again, passed his hand across his 
forehead, and looked quickly round the room, 
as though he were sensible of some change in 
its atmosphere. The Chemist, instantly trans- 
ferring to him the look of dread he had directed 
toward the wife, stepped back, and his face 
turned paler. 

“ The gentleman’s room,” said Tetterby, “ is 
up-stairs, sir. There’s a more convenient pri- 
vate entrance ; but as you have come in here it 
will save your going out into the cold, if you’ll 
take this little staircase,” showing one com- 
municating directly with the parlor, “ and go 
up to him that vyay, if you wish to see him.” 

“Yes, I w'ish to see him,” said the Chemist. 
Can you spare a light 1” 

The watchfulness of his haggard look, and 
the inexplicable distrust that darkened it, 
seemed to trouble Mr. Tetterby. He paused ; 
and looking fixedly at him in return, stood for 


a minute or so, like a man stupified or fascin- 
ated. 

At length he said, “ I’ll light you, sir, if you’ll 
follow me.” 

“ No,” replied the Chemist, “ I don’t wish to 
be attended, or announced to him. He does 
not expect me. I would rather go alone. 
Please to give me the light, if you can spare it, 
and I’ll find the way.” 

Ill the quickness of his expression of this 
desire, and in taking the candle from the news- 
man, he touched him on the breast. With- 
drawing his hand hastily, almost as though he 
had wounded him by accident (for he did not 
know in what part of himself his new power 
resided, or how it was communicated, or how 
the manner of its reception varied in different 
persons), he turned and ascended the stairs. 

But when he reached the top, he stopped 
and looked down. The wife was standing in 
the same place, twisting her ring round and 
round upon her finger. The husband, with his 
head bent forward on his breast, was musing 
heavily and sullenly. The children, still clus- 
tering about the mother, gazed timidly after the 
visitor, and nestled together when they saw 
him looking down. 

“ Come !” said the father, roughly. “ There’s 
enough of this. Get to bed here !” 

“The placeisinconvenient and small enough,” 
the mother added, “ without you. Get to bed.” 

Tlie whole brood, scared and sad, crept 
aw’ay ; little Johnny and the baby lagging last. 
The mother, glancing contemptuously round the 
sordid room, and tossing from her the fragments 
of their meal, stopped on the threshold of her 
task of clearing the table, and sat down, pon- 
dering idly and dejectedly. The father betook 
himself to the chimney-corner, and impatiently 
raking the small fire together, bent over it as if 
he w'ould monopolise it all. They did not in- 
terchange a word. 

The Chemist, paler than before, stole up- 
ward like ‘a thief; looking back upon the 
change below, and dreading equally to go on or 
return. 

“ What have I done !” he said, confusedly. 
“ What am I going to do !” 

“To be the benefactor of mankind,” he 
thought he beard a voice reply. 

He looked round, but there was nothing 
there ; and a passage now shutting out the lit- 
tTe parlour from his view, he went on, directing 
his eyes before him at the way he went. 

“ It is only since last night,” he muttered, 
gloomily, “ that I have remained shut up, and 
yet all things are strange to me. I am strange 
to myself. I am here, as in a dream. What in- 
terest have I in this place, or in any place that 
I can bring to my remembrance 1 My mind is 
going blind !” 

There was a door before him, and he knock- 
ed at it. Being invited, by a voice within, to 
enter, he complied. 

“ Is that my kind nurse I” said the voice. 
“ But I need not ask her. There is no one else 
to come here.” 

It spoke cheerfully, though in a languid tone, 
and attracted his attention to a young man ly- 
ing on a couch, drawn before the chimney- 
piece, with the back towards the door. A 
meagre, scanty stove, pinched and hollowed 


THE. GHOST’S BARGAIN. 


17 


like a sick man’s cheeks, and bricked into the 
centre of a hearth that it could scarcely warm, 
contained the fire, to which his face was turn- 
ed. Being so near the windy house-top, it 
wasted quickly, and with a busy sound, and the 
burning ashes dropped down fast. 

“ They chink when they shoot out here,” 
said the student, smiling, “ so, according to the 
gossips, they are not coffins, but purses. I 
shall be well and rich yet, some day, if it 
please God, and shall live perhaps to love a 
daughter Milly, in remembrance of the kindest 
nature, and the gentlest heart in the world.” 

He put up his hand as if expecting her to 
take it, but being weakened, he^lay still, with 
his face resting on his other hand, and did not 
turn round. 

The Chemist glanced about the room ; — at 
the student’s books and papers, piled upon a 
table in a corner, where they, and his extin- 
guished reading-lamp, now prohibited and put 
away, told of the attentive hours that had gone 
before this illness, and perhaps caused it ; — at 
such signs of his old health and freedom, as the 
out-of-door attire that hung idle on the wall ; — 
at those remembrances of other and less soli- 
tary scenes, the little miniatures upon the chim- 
ney-piece, and the drawing of home ; — at that 
token of his emulation, perhaps, in some sort, 
of his personal attachment too, the framed en- 
graving of himself, the looker-on. The time 
had been, only yesterday, when not one of these 
objects, in its remotest association of interest 
with the living figure before him, would have 
been lost on Redlaw'. Now, they were but ob- 
jects ; or, if any gleam of such connection shot 
upon him, it perplexed, and not enlightened 
him, as he stood looking round with a dull 
wonder. 

The student, recalling the thin hand which 
had remained so long untouched, raised him- 
self on the couch, and turned his head. 

“ Mr. Redlaw !” he exclaimed, and started 
up. 

Redlaw put out his arm. 

“ Don't come nearer to me. I will sit here. 
Remain you where you are!” 

He sat down on a chair near the door, and 
having glanced at the young man standing lean- 
ing with his hand upon the couch, spoke with 
his eyes averted towards the ground. 

“ I heard, by an accident, by what accident 
is no matter, that one of my c ass was ill and 
solitary. I received no other description of 
him, than that he lived in this treet. Begin- 
ning my inquiries at the first house in it, I have 
found him.” 

“ I have been ill, sir,” returned the student, 
not merely with a modest hesitation, but with 
a kind of awe of him, “ but ana greatly better^ 
An attack of fever — of the brain, I believe — has 
weakened me, but I am much better. I cannot 
say I have been solitary, in my illness, or I 
should forget the ministering hand that has 
been near me.” 

“You are speaking of the keeper’s wife,” 
said Redlaw. 

“ Yes.” The student bent his head, as if he 
rendered her some silent homage. 

The Chemist, in whom there was a cold, 
nonotonous apathy, w'hieh rendered him more 
ike a marble image on the tomb of the man 
B 


who had started from his dinner yesterday at 
the first mention of the student’s case, than the 
breathing man himself, glanced again at the 
student leaning with his hand upon the couch, 
and looked upon the ground, and in the air, as 
if for light for his blinded mind. 

“ I remembered your name,” he said, “when 
it was mentioned to me down stairs, just now; 
and I recollect your face. We have held but 
very little personal communication together!” 

“ Very little.” 

“You have retired and withdrawn from me, 
more than any of the rest, I think!” 

The student signified assent. 

“And why!” said the Chemist; not with the 
least expression of interest, but with a moody, 
wayward kind of curiosity. “Why! How 
comes it that you have sought to keep especially 
from me, the knowledge of your remaining here, 
at this season, when all the rest have dispersed, 
and of your being ill! I want to know why 
this is!” 

The young man, wffio had heard him with 
increasing agitation, raised his downcast eyes 
to his face, and clasping his hands together, 
cried with sudden earnestness, and with trem- 
bling lips : 

“Mr. Redlaw! You have discovered me. 
You know my secret !” 

“Secret!” said the Chemist, harshly. “/ 
know!” 

“ Yes ! Your manner, so different from the 
interest and sympathy w’hich endear you to so 
many hearts, your altered voice, the constraint 
there is in everything you say, and in your 
looks,” replied the student, “ w’arn me that you 
know me. That you wmuld conceal it, even 
now, is but a proof to me (God know's I need 
none !) of your natural kindness, and of the bar 
there is between us.” 

A vacant and contemptuous laugh was all 
his answ’er. 

“ But, Mr. Redlaw,” said the student, “as a 
just man, and a good man, think how innocent 
I am, except in name and descent, of participa- 
tion in any wrong inflicted on you, or in any 
sorrow you have borne.” 

“ Sorrow !” said Redlaw, laughing. “ Wrong ! 
What are those to me !” 

“ For Heaven’s sake,” entreated the shrink- 
ing student, “ do not let the mere interchange 
of a few words with me change you like this, 
sir ! Let me pass again from your knowledge 
and notice. Let me occupy my old reserved 
and distant place among those whom you in- 
struct. Know me only by the name I have 
assumed, and not by that of I^ongford — ” 

“Longford !” exclaimed the other. 

He clasped his head with both his hands, and 
for a moment turned upon the young man his 
own intelligent and thoughtful face. But the 
light passed from it, like the sunbeam ‘of an in- 
stant, and it clouded as before. 

“ The name my mother bears, sir,” faltered 
the young man, “ the name she took, when she 
might, perhaps, have taken one more honoured. 
Mr. Redlaw,” hesitating, “ I bekeve I know 
that history. Where my information halts, my 
guesses at what is wanting may supply some- 
thing not remote from the truth. I am the 
jhild of a marriage that has not proved itself a 
well-assorted or a happy one. From infancy, 


18 


THE HAUNTED MAN AND 


I have heard you spoken of with honour and 
respect — with something that was almost rev- 
erence. I have heard of such devotion, of such 
rising up against the obstacles which press 
men down, that my fancy, since I learnt my 
little lesson from my mother, has shed a ^stre 
on your name. At last, a poor student myself, 
from whom could I learn but youl” 

Redlaw, unmoved, unchanged, and looking 
at him with a staring frown, answered by no 
word or sign. 

“ I cannot say,*’ pursued the other, “ I should 
try in vain to say, how much it has impressed 
me, and affected me, to find the gracious traces 
of the past, in that certain power of winning 
gratitude and confidence which is associated 
among us students (among the humblest of us, 
most) with Mr. Redlaw’s generous name. Our 
ages and positions are so different, sir, and I 
am so accustomed to regard you from a dis- 
tance, that I wonder at my own presumption 
when I touch, however lightly, on that theme. 
But to one who — I may say, who felt no com- 
mon interest in my mother once — it may be 
something to hear, now that is all past, with 
w'hat indescribable feelings of affection I have, 
in my obscurity, regarded him ; with what pain 
and reluctance I have kept aloof from his 
encouragement, when a word of it would have 
made me rich ; yet how I have felt it fit that I 
should hold my course, content to know him, 
and to be unknown. Mr. Redlaw,” said the 
student, faintly, “what I would have said, I 
have said ilL for my strength is strange to me 
as yet ; but for anything unworthy in this 
fraud of mine, forgive me, and for all the rest 
forget me !” 

The staring frown remained on Redlaw’s 
face, and yielded to no other expression until 
the student, with these words, advanced to- 
wards him, as if to touch his hand, when he 
drew back and cried to him : 

“ Don’t come nearer to rne !” 

The young man stopped, shocked by the 
eagerness of his recoil, and by the sternness of 
his repulsion ; and he passed his hand thought- 
fully, across his forehead. 

“ The past is past,” said the Chemist. “ It 
dies like the brutes. Who talks to me of its 
traces in my life 1 He raves or lies ! < What 
have I to do with your distempered dreams 1 
If you want money, here it is. I came to offer 
it ; and that is all I came for. There can be 
nothing else that brings me here,” he muttered, 
holding his head again, with both his hands.. 
“ There can be nothing else, and yet — ” 

He had tossed his purse upon the table. As 
he fell into this dim cogitation with himself, 
the student took it up, and held it out to 
him. 

“Take it back, sir,” he said, proudly, though 
not angrily. “ I wish you could take from me, 
with it, the remembrance of your words and 
offer.” 

“ You do 1” he retorted, with a wild light in 
his eyes. “You do 1” 

“I do!” 

The Chemist went close to him, for the first 
time, and took the purse, and turned him by 
the arm, and looked him in the face. 

“ There is sorrow and trouble in sickness, is 
there notl” he demanded with a laugh. 


The wondering student answered, “ Yes.” 

“ In its unrest, in its anxiety, in its suspense, 
in all its train of physical and mental miseries'!” 
said the Chemist, with a wild unearthly exulta- 
tion. “All best forgotten, are they not'!” 

The student did not answer, but again pass- 
ed his hand, confusedly, across his forehead. 
Redlaw still held him by the sleeve, when Mil- 
ly’s voice was heard outside. 

“ I can see very well now,” she said, “ thank 
you, Dolf. Don’t cry, dear. Father and moth- 
er will be comfortable again, to-morrow, and 
home will be comfortable, too. A gentleman 
with him, is there !” 

Redlaw released his hold, as he listened. 

“ I have feared from the first moment,” he 
murmured to himself, “ to meet her. There is 
a steady quality of goodness in her, that I dread 
to influence. I may be the murderer of what 
is tenderest and best within her bosom.” 

She was knocking at the door. 

“ Shall I dismiss it as an idle foreboding, or 
still avoid her!” he muttered, looking uneasily 
around. 

She was knocking at the door again. 

“ Of all the visitors who should come here,” 
he said, in a hoarse alarmed voice, lurning to 
his companion, “this is the one I should desire 
most to avoid. Hide me !” 

The student opened a frail door in the wall, 
communicating, where the garret-roof began to 
slope towards the floor, with a small inner 
room. Redlaw passed in hastily, and shut it 
after him. 

The student then resumed his place upon the 
couch, and called her to enter. 

“Dear Mr. Edmund,” said Milly, looking 
round, “they told me there was a gentleman 
here.” 

“ There is no one here but I.” 

“ There has been some one !” 

“ Yes, yes, there has been some one.” 

She put her little basket on the table, and 
went up to the back of the couch, as if to take 
the extended hand — but it was not there. A 
little surprised, in her quiet way, she leaned 
over to look at his face, and gently touched him 
on the brow. 

“Are you quite as well to-night! Youi 
head is not so cool as in the afternoon.” 

“Tut!” said the student, petulantly, “very 
little ails me.” 

A little more surprise, but no reproach, was 
expressed in her face, as she withdrew to the 
other side of the table, and took a small packet 
of needlework from her basket. But she laid 
it down again, on second thoughts, and going 
noiselessly about the room, set every thing 
exactly in its place, and in the neatest order ; 
even to the cushions on the couch, which she 
touched with so light a hand, that he hardly 
seemed to know it, as he lay looking at the fire. 
When all this was done, and she had swept 
the hearth, she sat down, in her modest little 
bonnet, to her work, and was quietly busy on it 
directly. 

“ It’s the new muslin curtain for the window, 
Mr. Edmund,” said Milly, stitching away, as 
she talked. “ It will look very clean and nice, 
though it costs very little, and will save your 
eyes, too, from the light. My William says the 
room should not be too light just now, when 


THE GHOST’S BARGAIN. 


you are recovering so well, or the glare might 
make you giddy.” 

He said nothing ; but there was something 
so fretful and impatient in his change of posi- 
tion, that her quick fingers stopped, and she 
looked at him anxiously. 

“ The pillows are not comfortable,” she said, 
laying down her work and rising. “ I will soon 
put them right.” 

‘‘ They are very w’ell,” he answered. “ Leave 
them alone, pray. You make so much of every 
thing.” 

He raised his head to^say this, and looked at 
her so thanklessly, that, after he had thrown 
himself down again, she stood timidly pausing. 
However, she resumed her seat, and her needle, 
without having directed even a murmuring look 
toward him, and w’^as soon as busy as before. 

“ I have been thinking, Mr. Edmund, that 
you have been often thinking of late, w’hen I 
have been sitting by, how true the saying is, 
that adversity is a good teacher. Health will 
be more precious to you, after this illness, than 
it has ever been. And years hence, when this 
time of year comes round, and you remember 
the days when you lay here sick, alone, that 
the knowledge of your illness might not afflict 
those who are dearest to you, your home will 
be doubly dear and doubly blest. Now, isn’t 
that a good, true thing 1” 

She was too intent upon her work, and too 
earnest in what she said, and too composed 
and quiet altogether, to be on the watch for 
any look he might direct toward her in reply ; 
so the shaft of liis ungrateful glance fell harm- 
less, and did not wound her. 

“ Ah !” said Milly, with her pretty head in- 
clining thoughtfully on one side, as she looked 
down, following her busy fiiigers vviih her eyes. 
“ Even on me — and I am very different from 
you, Mr. Edmund, for I have no learning and 
don’t know how to think properly — this view of 
such things has made a great impression, since 
you have been lying ill. When I have seen 
you so touched by the kindness and attention 
of the poor people down stairs, I have felt that 
you thought even that experience some repay- 
ment for the loss of health, and I have read in 
your face, as plain as if it was a book, that but 
for some trouble nd sorrow we should never 
know half the good there is about us.” 

His getting up from the couch interrupted 
her, or she was going on to say more. 

“ We needn’t magnify the merit, Mrs. Wil- 
liam,” he rejoined slightingly. “ The people 
down stairs will be paid in good time, I dare 
say, for any little extra service they may have 
rendered me ; and perhaps they anticipate no 
less. I am much obliged to you, too.” 

Her fingers stopped, and she looked at him. 

“ I can’t be made to feel the more obliged by 
your exaggerating the case,” he said. “ I am 
sensible that you have been interested in me, 
and I say I am much obliged to you. What 
more would you have 1” 

Her work fell on her lap, as she still looked 
at him walking to and fro with an intolerant 
air, and stopping now and then. 

“ I say again, I am much obliged to you. 
Why w’eaken my sense of what is your due in 
obligation, by preferring enormous claims upon 
me 1 Trouble, sorrow, affliction, adversitv ! 


19 

One might suppose I had been dying a score of 
deaths here !” 

“ Do you believe, Mr. Edmund,” she asked, 
rising and going nearer to him, “that I spoke 
of the poor people of the house, with any refer- 
ence to myself? To me?” laying her hand 
upon her bosom with a simple and innocent 
smile of astonishment. 

“ Oh ! I think nothing about it, my good 
creature,” he returned. “ I have had an indis- 
position, which your solicitude — observe ! I 
say solicitude — makes a great deal more of, 
than it merits ; and it’s over, and we can’t per- 
petuate it.” 

He coldly took a book, and sat down at the 
table. 

She watched him for a little while, until her 
smile w'as quite gone, and then, returning to 
where her basket was, said gently : 

“Mr. Edmund, would you rather be alone?” 

“ There is no reason why I should detain you 
here,” he replied. 

“ E.xcept — ” said Milly, hesitating, and show- 
ing her work. 

“Oh! the curtain,” he answered, with a 
supercilious laugh. “ That’s not worth staying 
for.” 

She made up the little packet again, and put 
it in her basket. Then, standing before him 
with such an air of patient entreaty that he 
could not choose but look at her, she 
said : 

“ If you should want me, I will come back 
willingly. When you did want me, I was quite 
happy to come ; there was no merit in it. I 
think you must be afraid, that, now you are 
getting well, I may be troublesome to you ; but 
I should not have been, indeed. I should have 
come no longer than your weakness and con- 
finement lasted. You owe me nothing; but it 
is right that you should deal as justly by me as 
if I was a lady — even the very lady that you 
love ; and if you suspect me of meanly making 
much of the little I have tried to do to comfort 
your sick room, you do yourself more wrong 
than ever you can do me. That is why I am 
sorry. That is why I am very sorry.” j 

If she had been as passionate as she was 
quiet, as indignant as she was calm, as angry 
in her look as she was gentle, as loud of tone 
as she was low and clear, she might have left 
no sense of her departure in the room, com- 
pared with that which fell upon the lonely 
student when she went away. 

He was gazing drearily upon the place where 
she had been, when Redlaw came out of his 
concealment, and came to the door. 

“ When sickness lays its hand on you again,” 
he said, looking fiercely back at him, “ — may 
it be soon ! — Die here ! Rot here !” 

“ What have you done?” returned the other, 
catching at his cloak. “ What change have 
you wrought in me ? What curse have you 
brought upon me ? Give me back myself!” 

“ Give me back myself!” exclaimed Redlaw 
like a madman. “I am infected! I am in- 
fectious ! I am charged with poison for my 
own mind, and the minds of all mankind. 
Where I felt interest, compassion, sympathy, I 
am turning into stone. Selfishness and ingrati- 
tude spring up in my blighting footsteps. I am 
only so much less base than the wretches 


20 


TEE HAUNTED MAN AND 


Vfhom I make so, that in the moment of their 
transformation I can hate them.” 

As he spoke — the young man still holding to 
his cloak — he cast him off, and struck him ; 
then, wildly hurried out into the night air where 
the wind was blowing, the snow falling, the 
cloud-drift sweeping on, the moon dimly shin- 
ing ; and where, blowing in the wind, falling 
with the snow, drifting with the clouds, shining 
in the moonlight, and heavily looming in the 
darkness, were the Phantom’s words, “The 
gift that I have given, you shall give again, go 
where you will !” 

Wither he went, he neither knew nor cared, 
so that he avoided company. The change he 
felt within him made the busy streets a desert, 
and hijxself a desert, and the multitude around 
him, in ineir manifold endurances and ways of 
life, a mighty waste of sand, which the winds 
tossed into unintelligible heaps, and made a 
ruinous confusion of. Those traces in his 
breast which the Phantom had told him would 
“ die out soon,” were not, as yet so far upon 
their w’ay to death, but that he understood 
enough of what he was, and what he made of 
others, to desire to be alone. 

This put it in his mind — he suddenly be- 
thought himself, as he was going along, of the 
boy who had rushed into his room. And then 
he recollected, that of those with whom he had 
communicated since the Phantom’s disappear- 
ance, that boy alone had shown no sign of 
being changed. 

Monstrous and odious as the wild thing was 
to him, be determined to seek it out, and prove 
if this were really so ; and also to seek it with 
another intention, which came into his thoughts 
at the same time. 

So, resolving w'ith some difficulty where he 
was, he directed his s-teps back to the old 
college, and to that part of it where the^general 
porch was, and where, alone, the pavement was 
worn by tbe tread of the sludonts’ feet. 

The keeper’s house stood just within the 
iron gates, forming a part of the chief quadran- 
gle. There was a little cloister outside, and 
from that sheltered place he knew he could 
look in at the window of their ordinary room, 
and see who was within. The iron gates were 
shut, but bis hand was familiar with the fasten- 
ing, and drawing it back by thrusting in his 
wrist between the bars, he passed through 
softly, shut it again, and crept up to the window 
crumbling the thin crust of snow with his 
feet. 

The fire, to w’hich he had directed the boy 
last night, shining brightly through the glass, 
made an illuminated place upon the ground. 
Instinctively avoiding this, and going round it, 
he looked in at the window. At first, he thought 
that there was no one there, and that the blaze 
was reddening only the old beams in the ceiling 
and the dark walls; but peering in more nar- 
rowly, he saw the object of his search coiled 
asleep before it on the floor. He passed quick- 
ly to the door, opened it, and went in. 

The creature lay in such a fiery heat, that, as 
the Chemist stooped to rouse him, it scorched 
his head. So soon as he was touched, the boy, 
not half aw’ake, clutching his rags together with 
the instinct of flight upon him, half rolled and 
half ran into a distant corner of the room, where, 


heaped upon the ground, he struck his foot out 
to defend himself. 

“ Get up !” said the Chemist. You have not 
forgotten me 1” 

“ You let me alone !” returned the boy. This 
is the woman’s house — not yours.” 

The Chemist’s steady eye controlled him 
somewhat, or inspired him with enough submis- 
sion to be raised upon his feet, and looked at. 

“ Who washed them, and put those bandages 
where they were bruised and cracked !” asked 
the Chemist, pointing to their altered state. 

“ The woman did.” 

“ And is it she who has made yx)u cleaner in 
the face, too V 

“Yes ; the woman.” 

Redlaw asked these questions to attract hia 
eyes towards himself, and with the same intent 
now held him by the chin, and threw his wild 
hair back, though he loathed to touch him. The 
boy watched his eyes keenly, as if he thought 
it needful to his own defence, not knowing what 
he might do next ; and Redlaw could see well, 
that no change came over him. 

“ Where are they 1” he inquired. 

“ The woman’s out.” 

“ I know she is. Where is the old man with 
the white hair, and his sonl” 

“The woman’s husband, d’ye mean!” in 
quired the boy. 

“Aye. WTere are those two 1” 

“ Out. Something’s the matter, somewhere. 
They were fetched out in a hurry, and told me 
to stop here.” , 

“ Come with me,” said the Chemist, “ and 
I’ll give you money.” 

“ Come where 1 And how much will you 
give 1” 

“ I’ll give you more shillings than you ever 
saw, and bring you back soon. Do you know 
your way to where you came from 1” 

“You let me go,” returned the boy, suddenly 
twisting out of his grasp. “I’m not a going to 
take you there. Let me be, or I’ll heave soma 
fire at you !” 

He was down before it, and ready, with his 
savage little hand, to pluck the burning coals 
out. 

W’hat the Chemist, had felt, in observing the 
effect of his charmed influence stealing over 
those with whom he came in contact, was not 
nearly equal to the cold vague terror with which 
he saw this baby-monster put it at defiance. 
It chilled his blood to look on the immoveable, 
impenetrable thing, in the likeness of a child, 
with its sharp malignant face turned up to his, 
and its almost infant hand, ready at the bars. 

“ Listen, boy !” he said. “You shall take me 
where you please, so that you take me where 
the people are very miserable or very wicked. 

I want to do them good, and not to harm them. 
You shall have money, as I have told you, and 
I will bring you back. Get up ! Come quick- 
ly !” He made a hasty step toward the door, 
afraid of her returning. 

“ Will you let me walk by myself, and never 
hold me, nor yet touch me ?’ said the boy, 
slowly withdrawing the hand with which he 
threatened, and beginning to get up. 

“ I will !” 

“And let me go before, behind, or anyways 
I like!” 


THE GHOST’S BARGAIN. 


21 


« I will !” 

“ Give me some money first then, and I’ll 
go.” 

The Chemist laid a few shillings, one by one, 
in his extended hand. To count them was 
beyond the boy’s knowledge, but he said “one,” 
every time, and avariciously looked at each as 
it was given, and at the donor. He had no- 
where to put them, out of his hand, but in his 
mouth ; and he put them there. 

Redlavv then wrote with his pencil on a leaf 
of his pocket-book, that the boy was with him ; 
and laying it on the table, signed to him to fol- 
low. Keeping his rags together, as usual, the 
boy complied, and went out wirti his bare head 
and his naked feet into the winter night. 

Preferring not to depart by the iron gate by 
which he had entered, where they were in 
danger of meeting her whom he anxiously 
avoided, the Chemist led the way, through 
some of those passages among which the boy 
had lost himself, and by that portion of the 
building where he lived, to a small door of 
which he had the key. When they got into 
the street, he stopped to ask his guide — who 
instantly retreated from him — if he knew where 
they were. 

The savage thing looked here and there, and 
at length, nodding his head, pointed in the di- 
rection he designed to take. Redlaw going on 
at once, he followed, somewhat less suspicious- 
ly ; shifting his money from his mouth into his 
hand, and back again into his mouth, and 
stealthily rubbing it bright upon his shreds of 
dress, as he went along. 

Three times in their progress, they were side 
by side. Three times they stopped, being side 
by side. Three times the Chemist glanced 
down at his face, and shuddered as it forced 
upon him one reflection. 

The first occasion was when they were 
crossing an old churchyard, and Redlaw stopped 
among the graves, utterly at a loss how to con- 
nect them with any tender, softening, or con- 
solatory thought. 

The second was, when the breaking forth of 
the moon induced him to look up at the Heav- 
eni3, where he saw her in her glory, surrounded 
by a host of stars he still knew by the names 
and histories which human science had appended 
to them ; but where he saw nothing else he had 
been wont to see, felt nothing he had been w’ont 
to feel, in looking up there, on a bright night. 

The third was when he stopped to listen to 
a plaintive strain of music, but could only hear 
a tune, made manifest to him by the dry 
mechanism of the instruments and^his own 
ears, with no address to any mystery within 
him, without a whisper in it of the past, or of the 
future, powerless upon him as the sound of last 
year’s running water, or the rushing of last 
year’s wind. 

At each of these three times, he saw with 
horror that, in spite of the vast intellectual 
distance between them, and their being unlike 
each other in all physical respects, the expres- 
sion on the boy’s face was the expression on 
his own. 

They journeyed on for some time — now 
through such crowded places, that he often 
looked over his shoulder thinking he had lost 
His guide, but generally finding him within his 


shadow on his other side ; now by ways so 
quiet, that he could have counted his short, 
quick, naked footsteps coming on behind — until 
they arrived at a ruinous collection of houses, 
and the boy touched him and stopped. 

“ In there !” he said, pointing out one house 
where there were scattered lights in the win- 
dows, and a dim lantern in the doorway, with 
‘‘ Lodgings for Travelers” painted on it. 

Redlaw looked about him ; from the houses, 
to the waste piece of ground on which the 
houses stood, or rather did not altogether tum- 
ble down, unfenced, undrained, unlighted, and 
bordered by a sluggish ditch ; from that, to the 
sloping line of arches, part of some neighboring 
viaduct or bridge with which it W’as surrounded, 
and which lessened gradually, toward them, 
until the last but one was a mere kennel for a 
dog, the last a plundered little heap of bricks ; 
from that, to the child, close to him, cowering 
and trembling with the cold, and limping on 
one little foot while he coiled the other round 
his leg to warm it, yet staring at all these 
things with that frightful likeness of expression 
so apparent in his face, that Redlaw started 
from him. 

“ In there !” said the boy, pointing out the 
house again. “I’ll wait.” 

“ Will they let me in I” asked Re.’Uaw. 

“ Say you’re a doctor,” he answered with a 
nod. “ There’s plenty iil here.” 

Looking back on his way to the house-door, 
Redlaw saw him trail himself upon the dusi 
and craw'l within the shelter of the smallest 
arch, as if he were a rat. He had no pity foi 
the thing, but he was afraid of it ; and when it 
looked out of its den at him, he hurried to the 
house as a retreat. 

“ Sorrow, wrong, and trouble,” said the 
Chemist, with a painful effort at some more 
distinct remembrance, “at least haunt this 
place, darkly. He can do no harm, who brings 
forgetfulness of such things here !” 

With these words, he pushed the yielding 
door, and went in. 

There was a woman sitting on the stairs, 
either asleep or forlorn, whose head was bent 
down on her hands and knees. As it was not 
easy to pass without treading on her, and as 
she was perfectly regardless of his near ap- 
proach, he stopped, and touched her on the 
shoulder. Looking up, she showed him quite 
a young face, but one whose bloom and promise 
were all swept away, as if the haggard winter 
should unnaturally kill the spring. 

With little or no show of concern on his ac- 
count, she moved nearer to the wall to leave 
him a wider passage. 

“What are yen'!” said Redlaw, pausing, 
with his hand upon the broken stair-rail. 

“ What do you think I ami” she answered, 
showing him her face again. 

He looked upon the ruined Temple of God, 
so lately made, so soon disfigured ; and some- 
thing, which was not compassion — for the 
springs in which a true compassion for such 
miseries has its rise, were dried up in hiS 
breast — but which was nearer to it, for the mo- 
ment, than any feeling that had lately struggled 
into the darkening, but not yet wholly darkened, 
night of his mind, mingled a touch of softness 
with his next words. 


22 


THE HAUNTED MAN AND 


“ I am come here to give relief, if I can,” 
he said. “Are you thinking of any WTongl” 

She frowned at him, and then laughed ; and 
then her laugh prolonged itself into a shivering 
sigh, as she dropped her head again, and hid 
her fingers in her hair, 

“Are you thinking of a wrong 1” he asked, 
once more. 

“ I am thinking of my life,” she said, with a 
momentary look at him. 

He had a perception that she was one of 
many, and that he saw the type of thousands 
when he saw her, drooping at his feet. 

“What are your parents!” he demanded. 

“ I had a good home once. My father was a 
gardener, far away, in the country.” 

“ Is he dead !” 

“ He’s dead to me. AH such things are dead 
to me. You a gentleman, and not know that !” 
She raised her eyes again, and laughed at him. 

“ Girl !” said Redlaw, sternly, “ before this 
death, of all such things, was brought about, 
was there no wrong done to you '{ In spite of 
all that you can do, does no remembrance of 
wrong cleave to you 1 Are there not times 
upon times when it is misery to you!” 

So little of what was womanly was left in 
her appearance, that now, when she burst into 
tears, he stood amazed. But he was more 
amazed, and much disquieted, to note that in 
her awakened recollection of this wrong, the 
first trace of her old humanity and frozen ten- 
derness appeared to show itself. 

He drew a little off, and in doing so, observed 
that her arms were black, her face cut, and her 
bosom bruised. 

“What brutal hand has hurt you so!” he 
asked. 

“My own. I did it myself!” she answered 
quickly. 

“ It is impossible.” 

“ I’ll swear I did ! He didn’t touch me. I 
did it to myself in a passion, and threw myself 
down here. He wasn’t near me. He never 
laid a hand upon me !” 

In the white determination of her face, con- 
fronting him with this untruth, he saw enough 
of the last perversion and distortion of good sur- 
viving in that miserable breast, to be stricken 
with remorse that he had ever come near her. 

“ Sorrow, wrong, and trouble I” he muttered, 
turning his fearful gaze away. “All that con- 
nects her with the state from which she has 
fallen, has those roots ! In the name of God, 
let me go by !” 

Afraid to look at her again, afraid to touch 
her, afraid to think of having sundered the last 
thread by which she held upon the mercy of 
Heaven, he gathered his cloak about him, and 
glided swiftly up the stairs. 

Opposite to him, on the landing, was a door, 
which stood partly open, and which, as he as- 
cended, a man, with a candle in his hand, came 
forward from within to shut. But this man, on 
seeing him, drew back, with much emotion in 
his manner, and, as if by a sudden impulse, 
mentioned his name aloud. 

In the surprise of such a recognition there, 
he stopped, endeavouring to recollect the wan 
and startled face. He had no time to consider 
it, for, to his yet greater amazement, old Philip 
came out of the room, and took him by the 
hand. 


“Mr. Redlaw,” said the old man, “ this is 
like you, this is like you, sir! you have heard 
of it, and have come after us to render any help 
you can. Ah, too late, too late !” 

Redlaw, with a bewildered look, submitted to 
be led into the room. A man lay there, on a 
truckle-bed, and William Swidger stood at the 
bedside. 

“Too late !” murmured the old man, looking 
wistfully into the Chemist’s face ; and the tears 
stole down his cheeks. 

“That’s what I say, father,” interposed his 
son, in a low voice. “ That’s where it is, ex- 
actly. To keep as quiet as ever we can while 
he’s a dozing, is the only thing to do. You’re 
right, father !” 

Redlaw paused at the bedside, and looked 
down on the figure that was stretched upon the 
mattress. It was that of a man, who should 
have been in the vigour of his life, but on whom 
it was not likely that the sun would ever shine 
again. The vices of his forty or fifty years’ 
career had so branded him, that, in comparison 
with their effects upon his face, the heavy hand 
of time upon the old man’s face who watched 
him, had been merciful and beautifying. 

“Who is this!” asked the Chemist, looking 
round. 

“ My son George, Mr. Redlaw,” said the old 
man, wringing his hands. “ My eldest son, 
George, who was more his mother’s pride than 
all the rest !” 

Redlaw’s eyes wandered from the old man’s 
grey head, as he laid it down upon the bed, to 
the person who had recognized him, and who 
had kept aloof, in the remotest corner of the 
room. He seemed to be about his own age ; 
and although he knew no such hopelessly de- 
cayed and broken man as he appeared to be, 
there was something in the turn of his figure, 
as he stood with his back towards him, and 
now went out at the door, that made him pass 
his hand uneasily across his brow. 

“ William,” he said in a gloomy whisper, 
“ who is that man !” 

“Why you see, sir,” returned Mr. William, 
“ that’s what I say, myself. Why should a 
man ever go and gamble, and the like of that, 
and let himself down inch by inch till he can’t 
let himself down any lower !” 

“ Has he done so !” asked Redlaw, glancing 
after him with the same uneasy action as be- 
fore. 

“Just exactly that, sir,” returned William 
Swidger, “as I’m told. He knows a little 
about medicine, sir, it seems ; and having been 
wayfaring towards London with my unhappy 
brother that you see here,” Mr. William passed 
his coat-sleeve across his eyes, “and being 
lodging up-stairs for the night — what I say, 
you see, is that strange companions come to- 
gether here sometimes — he looked in to attend 
upon him, and came for us at his request. 
What a mournful spectacle, sir ! But that’s 
where it is. It’s enough to kill my father !” 

Redlaw looked up at these words, and, re- 
calling where he was and with whom, and the 
spell he carried with him — which his surprise 
had obscured — retired a little, hurriedly, debat- 
ing with himself whether to shun the house 
that moment, or remain. 

Yielding to a certain sullen doggedness, 


THE GHOST’S BARGAIN. 


23 


which it seemed to be a part of his condition to 
struggle with, he argued for remaining. 

“Was it only yesterday,” he said, “when I 
observed the memory of this old man to be a 
tissue of s-orrow and trouble, and shall I be 
afraid, to-night, to shake it 1 Are such remem- 
brances as I can drive away, so precious to this 
dying man that i need fear for him ? No ! I’ll 
stay here.” 

But he stayed, in fear and trembling none 
the less for these words ; and, shrouded in his 
black cloak with his face turned from them, 
stood away from the bedside, listening to what 
they said, as if he felt himself a demon in the 
place. 

“ Father !” murmured the sick man, rallying 
a little from his stupor. 

“ My boy ! my son George !” said old Philip 

“ You spoke, just now, of my being mother’s 
favourite, long ago. It’s a dreadful thing to 
think now, of long ago !” 

' “ No, no, no returned the old man. “Think 
of it. Don’t say it’s dreadful. It’s not dread- 
ful to me, my son.” 

“ It cuts you to the heart, father.” For the 
old man’s tears were falling on him. 

“Yes, yes,” said Philip,” so it does; but it 
does me good. It’s a heavy sorrow to think of 
that time, but it does me good, George. Oh, 
think of it too, think of it too, and your heart 
will be softened more and more ! Where’s ray 
son William 1 William, my boy, your mother 
loved him dearly to the last, and with her latest 
breath said, ‘ Tell him I forgave him, blessed 
him, and prayed for him.’ Those were her 
words to me. I have never forgotten them, 
and I’m eighty-seven !” 

“ Father !” said the man upon the bed, “I 
am dying, I know. I am so far gone, that I 
can hardly speak, even of what my mind most 
runs on. Is there any hope for me, beyond this 
bed I” 

“ There is hope,” returned the old man, “ for 
all who are softened and penitent. There is 
hope for all such. Oh !” he exclaimed, clasp- 
ing his hands and looking up, “ I was thankful, 
only yesterday, that I could remember this un- 
happy son when he w'as an innocent child. 
But what a comfort is it, now, to think that 
even God himself has that remembrance of 
him !” 

Redlaw spread his hands upon his face, and 
shrunk, like a murderer. 

“ Ah !” feebly moaned the man upon the bed. 
“ The waste since then, the waste of life since 
then !” 

“ But he was a child once,” said the old 
man. “ He played with children. Before he 
lay down on his bed at night, and fell into his 
guiltless rest, he said his prayers at his poor 
mother’s knee. I have seen him do it, many a 
time ; and seen her lay his head upon her 
breast, and kiss him. Sorrowful as it was to 
ner, and me, to think of this, when he went so 
wrong, and when our hopes and plans for him 
were all broken, this gave him still a hold upon 
us, that nothing else could have given. Oh, 
Father, so much better than the fathers upon 
earth ! Oh, Father, so much more afflicted by 
the errors of thy children ! take this wanderer 
back ! Not as he is, but as he was then, let 
him cry to thee, as he has so often seemed to 
cry to us !” 


As the old man lifted up his trembling hands, 
the son, for whom he made the supplication, 
laid his sinking head against him for support 
and comfort, as if he indeed were the child of 
whom he spoke. 

When did man ever tremble, as Redlaw” 
trembled, in the silence that ensued ! He knew 
it must come upon them, knew that it was 
coming fast. 

“ My time is very short, my breath is shorter,” 
said the sick man, supporting himself on one 
arm, and with the other groping in the air, 
“ and I remember there is something on my 
mind concerning the man who was here just 
now. Father and William — wait ! — is there 
really anything in black, out there!” 

“ Yes, yes, it is real,” said his aged father. 

“ Is it a man !” 

“ What I say myself, George,” interposed his 
brother, bending kindly over him. “ It’s Mr. 
Redlaw.” 

“ I thought I had dreamed of him. Ask him 
to come here.” 

The Chemist, whiter than the dying man, 
appeared before him. Obedient to the motion 
of his hand, he sat upon the bed. 

“ It has been so ripped up, to-night, sir,” 
said the sick man, laying his hand upon his 
heart, with a look in which the mute, imploring 
agony of his condition was concentrated, “ by 
the sight of my poor old father, and the 
thought of all the trouble I have been the cause 
of, and all the wrong and sorrow lying at my 
door, that — ” 

Was it the extremity to which he had come, 
or was it the dawning of another change, that 
made him stop !” 

“ — that what I can do right, with my mind 
running on so much, so fast. I’ll try to do. 
There was another man here. Did you see 
him 1” 

Redlaw could not reply by any word ; for 
when he saw that fatal sign he knew so well 
now, of the wandering hand upon the forehead, 
his voice died at his lips. But he made some 
indication of assent. 

“ He is penniless, hungry, and destitute. He 
is completely beaten down, and has no resource 
at all. Look after him ! Lose no time ! I 
know he has it in his mind to kill himself.” 

It was working. It was on his face. His 
face was changing, hardening, deepening in all 
its shades, and losing all its sorrow. 

“Don’t you remember! Don’t you know 
him !” he pursued. 

He shut his face out for a moment, with the 
hand that again wandered over his forehead, 
and then it lowered on Redlaw, reckless, 
ruffianly, and callous. 

“ Why, d — n you !” he said, scowling round, 
“ what have you been doing to me here ! I 
have lived bold, and I mean to die bold. To 
the Devil with you !” 

And so lay down upon his bed, and put his 
arms up, over his head and ears, as resolute 
from that time to keep out all access, and to 
die in his indifference. 

If Redlaw had been struck by lightning, it 
could not have struck him from the bedside 
with a more tremendous shock. But the old 
man, who had left the bed while his son was 
speaking to him, now returning, avoided it 
quickly likewise, and with abhorrence. 


24 


THE HAUNTED MAN AND 


“Where’s my boy William'?” said the old 
man hurriedly. “ William, come away from 
here. We’ll go home.” 

‘■‘Home, father!” returned William. “Are 
you going to leave your own son '?” 

“Where’s my own son?’ replied the old 
man. > 

“ Where 1 why, there !” 

“ That’s no son of mine,” said Philip, trem- 
bling with resentment. “ No such wretch as 
that, has any claim on me. My children are 
pleasant to look at, and they wait upon me, 
and get my meat and drink ready, and are use- 
ful to me. I’ve a right to it ! I’m eighty- 
seven !” 

“ You are old enough to be no older,” mut- 
tered William, looking at him grudgingly, with 
his hands in his pockets. “ I don’t know what 
good you are, myself. We could have a deal 
more pleasure without you.” 

“iWy son, Mr. Redlaw !” said the old man. 
“ My son, too ! The boy talking to me of my 
son ! Why, what has he ever done to give me 
any pleasure, I should like to know ?’ 

“ I don’t know what you have ever done to 
give me any pleasure ” said William, sulkily. 

“Let me think,” said the old man. “For 
how many Christmas times running, have I sat 
in my warm place, and never had to come out 
in the cold night air ; and have made good 
cheer, without being disturbed by any such un- 
comfortable, wretched sight as him there 1 Is 
it twenty, William?’ 

“ Nigher forty, it seems,” he muttered. 
“ Why, when I look at my father, sir, and 
come to‘think of it,” addressing Redlaw, with 
an impatience and irritation that were quite 
new, “ I’m whipped if I can see anything in 
him, but a calendar of ever so many years of 
eating, and drinking, and making himself com- 
fortable, over and over again.” 

“I — I’m eighty-seven,” said the old man, 
rambling on, childishly and weakly, “ and I 
don’t know as I ever was much put about by 
anything. I’m not a going to begin now. be- 
cause of what he calls my son. He’s not my 
son. I’ve had a power of pleasant times. I 
recollect once — no I don’t — no, it’s broken off. 
It was something about a game of cricket and 
a friend of mine, hut it’s somehow broken off. 
I w'onder wdio he was — I suppose I liked him 1 
And I w'onder what became of him — I suppose 
he died ? But I don’t know. And I don’t 
care, neither ; I don’t care a bit.” 

In his drowsy chuckling, and the shaking of 
his head, he put his hands into his waistcoat 
pockets. In one of them he found a bit of hol- 
ly (left there, probably, last night), which he 
now took out, and looked at. 

“Berries, eh?’ said the old man. “Ah! 
It’s a pity they’re not good to eat. I recollect, 
when I was a little chap about as high as that, 
and out a walking with — let me see — who was 
I out a walking with? — no, I don’t remember 
how that was. I don’t remember as I ever 
walked with any one particular, or cared for 
any one, or any one for me. Berries, eh 1 
There’s good cheer when there’s berries. 
Well ; I ought to have my share of it, and to 
be waited on, and kept warm and comfortable ; 
for I’m eighty-seven, and a poor old man. I’m 
eigh-ty-seven. Eigh-ty-seven !” 


The drivelling, pitiable manner in which, as 
he repeated this, he nibbled at the leaves, and 
spat the morsels out ; the cold, uninterested 
eye with which his youngest son (so changed) 
regarded him ; the determined apathy with 
which his eldest son lay hardened in his sin; 
impressed themselves no more on Redlaw’s 
observation, — for he broke his way from the 
spot to which his feet seemed to have been 
fixed, and ran out of the house. 

His guide came crawling forth from his place 
of refuge, and was ready for him before he 
reached the arches. 

“Back to the woman’s?’ he inquired. 

“ Back, quickly !” answered Redlaw. “ Stop 
nowhere on the way !” 

For a short distance the boy went on before ; 
but their return was more like a flight than a 
walk, and it was as much as his bare feet 
could do, to keep pace with the Chemist’s rapid 
strides, Shrinking from all who passed, 
shrouded in his cloak, and keeping it drawn 
closely about him, as though there were mortal 
contagion in any fluttering touch of his gar- 
ments, he made no pause until they reached 
the door by which they had come out. He 
unlocked it with his key, went in, accompanied 
by the boy, and hastened through the dark pas- 
sages to his own chamber. 

The boy watched him as he made the door 
fast, and withdrew behind the table, when he 
looked round. 

“Come!” he said. “Don’t you touch me ! 
You’ve not brought me here to take my money 
away.” 

Redlaw threw seme more upon the ground. 
He flung his body on it immediately, as if to 
hide it from him, lest the sight of it should 
tempt him to reclaim it ; and not until he saw 
him seated by his lamp, with his face hidden in 
his hands, began furtively to pick it up. When 
he had done so, he cfept near the fire, and, 
sitting down in a great chair before it, took 
from his breast some broken scraps of food, and 
fell to munching, and to staring at the blaze, 
and now and then to glancing at his shillings, 
which he kept clenched up in a bunch, in one 
hand. 

“ And this,” said Redlaw, gazing on him with 
increasing repugnance and fear, “ is the only 
one companion I have left on earth !” 

How long it was before he was aroused from 
his contemplation of this creature, whom he 
dreaded so — whether half an hour, or half the 
night — he knew not. But the stillness of the 
room was broken by the boy (whom he had 
seen listening) starting up, and running towards 
the door. 

“ Here’s the woman coming !” he exclaimed. 

The Chemist stopped him on his way, at the 
moment when she knocked. 

“ I-et me go to her, will you ?’ said the boy. 

“ Not now,” returned the Chemist. “ Stay 
here. Nobody must pass in or out of the room, 
now. Who’s that?’ 

“ It’s I, sir,” cried Milly. “ Pray, sir, let me 
in !” 

“ No ! not for the world !” he said. 

“ Mr. Redlaw, Mr. Redlaw, pray, sir, let me 
in.” 

“ What is the matter ?’ he said, holding the 
, boy. 


THE GHOST’S BARGAIN. 


25 


“The miserable man you saw is worse, and 
nothing I can say will wake him from his terri- 
ble infatuation. William’s father has turned 
childish in a moment. William himself is 
changed. The shock has been too sudden for 
him ; I cannot understand him ; he is not like 
himself. Oh, Mr. Redlaw, pray advise me, 
help me !” 

“No! no! no!” he answered. 

“ Mr. Redlaw ! Dear sir ! George has been 
muttering, in his doze, about the man you saw 
there, who, he fears, will kill himself.” 

“ Better he should do it, than come near 
me !” 

“ He says, in his wandering, that you know 
him ; that he was your friend once, long ago ; 
that he is the ruined father of a student here — 
my mind misgives me of the young gentleman 
who has been ill. What is to be done 1 How 
is he to be followed 1 How is he to be saved 1 
Mr. Redlaw, pray, oh, pray, advise me ! Help 
me !” 

All this time he held the boy, who was half- 
mad to pass him, and let her in. 

“ Phantoms! Punishers of impiousthoughts!” 
cried Redlaw, gazing round in anguish, “ Look 
upon me ! From the darkness of my mind, let 
the glimmering of contrition that I know is 
there, shine up, and show my misery ! In the 
material world, as I have long taught, nothing 
can be spared ; no step or atom in the wondrous 
structure could be lost, without a blank being 
made in the great universe. I know, now, that 
it is the same with good and evil, happiness 
and sorrow, in the memories of men. Pity 
me ! Relieve me !” 

There was no response, but her “ Help me, 
help me, let me in !” and the boy’s struggling to 
get to her. 

“Shadow of myself! Spirit of my darker 
hours !” cried Redlaw, in distraction, “ Come 
back, and haunt me day and night, but take this 
gift away ! Or, if it must still rest with me, 
deprive me of the dreadful power of giving it to 
others. Undo what I have done. Leave me 
benighted, but restore the day to those whom I 
have cursed. As I have spared this woman 
from the first, and as I never will go forth 
again, but will die here, with no hand to tend 
me, save this creature’s who is proof against 
me, — hear me !” 

The only reply still was, the boy struggling to 
get to her, while he held him back ; and the 
cry, increasing in its energy, “ Help ! let me in. 
He was your friend once, how shall he be 
followed, how shall he be saved 1 They are all 
changed, there is no one else to help me, pray, 
pray, let me in !” 


CHAPTER III. 

THE GIFT REVERSED. 

Night was still heavy in the sky. On open 
plains, from hill-tops, and from the decks of 
solitary ships at sea, a distant low-lying line, 
that promised bye and bye to change to light, 
was visible in the dim horizon ; but its promise 
was remote and doubtful, and the moon was 
striving with the night-clouds busily. 

The shadows upon Redlaw’s mind succeeded 


thick and fast to one another, and obscured its 
light as the night-clouds hovered between the 
moon and earth, and kept the latter veiled in 
darkness. Fitful and uncertain as the shadows 
which the night-clouds cast, were their con- 
cealments from him, and imperfect revelations 
to him ; and, like the night-clouds still, if the 
clear light broke forth for a moment, it was only 
that they might sweep over it, and make the 
darkness deeper than before. 

Without, there was a profound and solemn 
hush upon the ancient pile of building, and its 
buttresses and angles made dark shapes of mys- 
tery upon the ground, which now seemed to re- 
tire into the smooth white snow and now seem- 
ed to come out of it, as the moon’s path was 
more or less beset. Within, the Chemist’s 
room was indistinct and murky, by the light of 
the expiring lamp ; a ghostly silence had suc- 
ceeded to the knocking and the voice outside ; 
nothing was audible but, now and then, a low 
sound among the whitened ashes of the fire, as 
of its yielding up its last breath. Before it on 
the ground the boy lay fast asleep. In his chair, 
the Chemist sat, as he had sat there since the 
calling at his door had ceased — like a man turn- 
ed to stone. 

At such a time, the Christmas music he had 
heard before^ began to play. He listened to it 
at first, as he had listened in the churchyard ; 
but presently — it playing still, and being borne 
towards him on the night air, in a low, sweet, 
melancholy strain — he arose, and stood stretch- 
ing his hands about him, as if there were some 
friend approaching within his reach, on whom 
his desolate touch might rest, yet do no harm. 
As he did this, his face became less fixed and 
wondering ; a gentle trembling came upon him ; 
and at last his eyes filled with tears, and he put 
his hands before them, and bowed down his 
head. 

His memory of sorrow, wrong, and trouble, 
had not come back to him ; he knew that it was 
not restored ; he had no passing belief or hope 
that it was. But some dumb stir within him 
made him capable, again, of being moved by 
what was hidden afar off, in the music. If it 
were only that it told him sorrowfully the value 
of what he had lost, he thanked Heaven for it 
with a fervent gratitude. 

As the last chord died upon his ear, he raised 
his head to listen to its lingering vibration. 
Beyond the boy, so that his sleeping figure lay 
at its feet, the Phantom stood, immoveable and 
silent, with its eyes upon him. 

Ghastly it was, as it had ever been, but not 
so cruel and relentless in its aspect — or he 
thought or hoped so, as he looked upon it, 
trembling. It was not alone, but in its shad- 
owy hand it held another hand. 

And whose was thatl Was the form that 
stood beside it indeed Milly’s, or but her shade 
and picture 1 The quiet head was bent a little, 
as her manner was, and her eyes were looking 
down, as if in pity, on the sleeping child. A 
radiant light fell on her face, but did not touch 
the Phantom ; for, though close beside her, it 
was dark and colourless as ever. 

“ Spectre !” said the Chemist, newly troubled 
as he looked, “ I have not been stubborn or pre- 
sumptuous in respect of her. Oh, do not bring 
her here. Spare me that !” 


26 


THE HAUNTED MAN AND 


“ This is but a shadow,” said the Phantom ; 
‘when the morning shines, seek out the reality 
whose image I present before you.” 

“ Is it my inexorable doom to do sol” cried 
the Chemist. 

“ It is,” replied the Phantom. 

“ To destroy her peace, her goodness ; to 
make her what I am myself, and what I have 
made of others !” 

“ I have said ‘ seek her out,’ ” returned the 
Phantom. “ I have said no more.” 

“ Oh, tell me,” exclaimed Redlaw, catching 
at the hope which he fancied might lie hidden 
in the words. “ Can I undo what I have done 1” 

“ No,” returned the Phantom. 

“ I do not ask for restoration to myself,” said 
Redlaw. “ What I abandoned, I abandoned of 
my own will, and have justly lost. But for 
those to whom I have transferred the fatal gift ; 
who never sought it ; who unknowingly re- 
ceived a curse of which they had no warning, 
and which they had no power to shun ; can I 
do nothing 1” 

“ Nothing,” said the Phantom. 

“ If I can not, can any one 1” 

The Phantom, standing like a statue, kept 
its gaze upon him for a while ; then turned its 
head suddenly, and looked upon the shadow at 
its side. 

“Ah! Can shel” cried Redlaw, still look- 
ing upon the shade. 

The Phantom released the hand it had retain- 
ed till now, and softly raised its own with a 
gesture of dismissal. Upon that, her shadow, 
still preserving the same attitude, began to 
move or melt away. 

“ Stay,” cried Redlaw, with an earnestness 
to which he could not give enough expression. 
“For a moment! As an act of mercy! I 
know that some change fell upon me, when 
those sounds were in the air just now. Tell 
me, have I lost the power of harming herl 
May I go near her without dread 1 Oh, let her 
give me any sign of hope I” 

The Phantom looked upon the shade as he 
did — not at him — and gave no answer, 

“ At least, say this — has she, henceforth, the 
consciousness of any power to set right what I 
have done 1” 

“ She has not,” the Phantom answered. 

“ Has she the power bestowed on her with- 
out the consciousness"!” 

The Phantom answered : “ Seek her out.” 
And her shadow slowly vanished. 

They were face to face again, and looking on 
each other, as intently and awfully as at the 
time of the bestowal of the gift, across the boy 
who still lay on the ground between them, at 
the Phantom’s feet. 

“ Terrible instructor,” said the Chemist, sink- 
ing on his knee before it, in an attitude of sup- 
plication, “ by whom I was renounced, but by 
whom I am revisited (in which, and in whose 
milder aspect, I would fain believe I have a 
gleam of hope), I will obey without inquiry, 
praying that the cry I have sent up in the an- 
guish of my soul has been, or will be, heard, in 
behalf of those whom I have injured beyond 
human reparation. But there is one thing — ” 

“You speak to me of what is lying here,” 
the Phantom interposed, and pointed with its 
finger to the boy. 


“I do,” returned the Chemist. “You know 
what I would ask. Why has this child alone 
been proof against my influence, and why, why, 
have I detected in its thoughts a terrible com- 
panionship with mine"?” 

“ This,” said the Phantom, pointing to the 
boy, “is the last, completest illustration of a 
human creature, utterly bereft of such remem- 
brances as you have yielded up. No softening 
memory of sorrow, wrong, or trouble enters 
here, because this wretched mortal from his 
birth has been abandoned to a worse condition 
than the beasts, and has, within his knowledge, 
no one contrast, no humanising touch, to make 
a grain of such a memory spring up in his hard- 
ened breast. All within this desolute creature 
is barren wilderness. All within the man be- 
reft of what you have resigned, is the same 
barren wilderness. Woe to such a man ! Woe, 
tenfold, to the nation that shall count its mon- 
sters such as this, lying here, by hundreds and 
by thousands !” 

Redlaw shrunk, appalled, from what he heard, 

“ There is not,” said the Phantom, “ one of 
these — not one — but sows a harvest that man- 
kind MUST reap. From every seed of evil in 
this boy, a field of ruin is grown that shall be 
gathered in, and garnered up, and sown again 
in many places in the world, until regions are 
overspread with wickedness enough to raise 
the waters of another Deluge. Open and un- 
punished murder in a city’s streets would be 
less guilty in its daily toleration, than one such 
spectacle as this.” 

It seemed to look down upon the boy in his 
sleep. Redlaw, too, looked down upon him 
with a new emotion. 

“ There is not a father,” said the Phantom, 

“ by whose side in his daily or his nightly walk, 
these creatures pass ; there is not a mother 
among all the ranks of loving mothers in this 
land ; there is no one risen from the state of 
childhood, but shall be responsible in his or her 
degree for this enormity. There is not a coun- 
try throughout the earth on which it 'would not 
bring a curse. There is no religion upon earth 
that it would not deny ; there is no people upon 
earth it would not put to shame.” 

The Chemist clasped his hands, and looked, 
with trembling fear and pity, from the sleeping 
boy to the Phantom, standing above him with 
its finger pointing down. 

“Behold, I say,” pursued the Spectre, “the 
perfect type of what it was your choice to be. 
Your influence is powerless here, because from 
this child’s bosom you can banish nothing. His 
thoughts have been in ‘ terrible companionship’ 
with yours, because you have gone down to his 
unnatural level. He is the growth of man’s in- 
difference ; you are the growth of man’s pre- 
sumption. The beneficent design of Heaven is, 
in each case, overthrown, and from the two 
poles of the immaterial world you come togeth- 
er.” 

The Chemist stooped upon the ground beside 
the boy, and, with the same kind of compassion 
for him that he now felt for himself, covered 
him as he slept, and no longer shrunk from him 
with abhorrence or indifference. 

Soon, now, the distant line on the horizon 
briglitened, the darkness faded, the sun rose 
red and glorious, and the chimney stacks and - 


27 


THE GHOST’S BAKGAIN. 


gables of the ancient building gleamed in the 
clear air, which turned the smoke and vapour 
of the city into a cloud of gold. The very sun- 
dial in his shady corner, where the wind was 
used to spin with such un-windy constancy, 
shook off the finer particles of snow that had 
accumulated on his dull old face in the night, 
and looked out at the little white wreaths eddy- 
ing round and round him. Doubtless some blind 
groping of the morning made its way down into 
the forgotten crypt so cold and earthy, where 
the Norman arches were half buried ip the 
ground, and stirred the dull sap in the lazy veg- 
etation hanging to the walls, and quickened the 
slow principle of life within the little world of 
■w’onderful and delicate creation which existed 
there, with some faint knowledge that the sun 
was up. 

The Tetterbys were up and doing. Mr. Tet- 
terby took down the shutters of the shop, and, 
strip by strip, revealed the treasures of the win- 
dow to the eyes, so proof against their seduc- 
tions, of Jerusalem Buildings. Adolphus had 
been out so long already, that he was halfway 
on to Morning Pepper. Five small Tetterbys, 
whose ten round eyes were much inflamed by 
soap and friction, were in the tortures of a cool 
wash in the back kitchen ; Mrs. Tetterby pre- 
siding. Johnny, who was pushed and hustled 
through his toilet with great rapidity when Mo- 
loch chanced to be in an exacting frame of 
mind (which w'as always the case), staggered 
up and down with his charge before the shop 
door, under greater difficulties than usual ; the 
weight of Moloch being much increased by a 
complication of defences against the cold, com- 
posed of knitted worsted-work, and forming a 
complete suit of chain-armour, with a head- 
piece and blue gaiters. 

It was a peculiarity of this baby to be always 
cutting teeth. Whether they never came, or 
whether they came and went away again, is 
not in evidence ; but it had certainly cut enough, 
on the showing of Mrs. Tetterby, to make a 
handsome dental provision for the sign of the 
Bull and Mouth. All sorts of objects were im- 
pressed for the rubbing of its gums, notwith- 
standing that it always carried, dangling at its 
waist (which was immediately under its chin), 
a bone ring, large enough to have represented 
the rosary of a young nun. Knife-handles, um- 
brella-tops, the heads of walking-sticks selected 
from the stock, the fingers of the family in gen- 
eral, but especially of Johnny, nutmeg-graters, 
crusts, the handles of doors, and the cool knobs 
on the tops of pokers, were among the com- 
monest instruments indiscriminately applied for 
this baby’s relief. The amount of electricity 
that must have been rubbed out of it in a week 
is not to be calculated. Still Mrs. Tetterby al- 
ways said, “ it was coming through, and then 
the child would be herself and still it never 
did come through, and the child continued to be 
somebody else. / 

The tempers of the little Tetterbys had sadly 
changed within a few hours. Mr. and Mrs. Tet- 
terby themselves were not more altered than 
their oflspring. Usually they were an unself- 
ish, good-natured, yielding little race, sharing 
short-commons when it happened (which was 
pretty often) contentedly and even generously, 
and taking a great deal of enjoyment out of a 


very little meat. But they were fighting now, 
not only for the soap and water, but even for 
the breakfast which was yet in perspective. 
The hand of every little Tetterby was against 
the other little Tetterbys ; and even Johnny’s 
hand — the patient, much-enduring, and devoted 
Johnny — rose against the baby ! Yes. Mrs. 
Tetterby, going to the door by a mere accident, 
saw him viciously pick out a weak place in the 
suit of armour w’here a slap would tell, and slap 
that blessed child. 

Mrs. Tetterby had him into the parlour, by 
the collar, in that same flash of time, and re- 
paid him the assault with usury thereto. 

“You brute, you murdering little boy,” said 
Mrs. Tetterby. “ Had you the heart to do 
itl” 

“ Why don’t her teeth come through, then,” 
retorted Johnny, in a loud, rebellious voice, 
“ instead of bothering me 1 How would you 
like it yourself!” 

“ Like it, sir !” said Mrs. Tetterby, relieving 
him of his dishonoured load. 

“ Yes, like it,” said Johnny. “ How would 
you ! Not at all. If you was me, you’d go for 
a soldier. I will, too. There an’t no babies in 
the army.” 

Mr. Tetterby, who had arrived upon the scene 
of action, rubbed his chin thoughtfully, instead 
of correcting the rebel, and seemed rather 
struck by this view of a military life. 

“ I wish I was in the army myself, if the 
child’s in the right,” said Mrs. Tetterby, look- 
ing at her husband, “ for I have no peace of my 
life here. I’m a slave — a Virginia slave !” some 
indistinct association with their weak descent 
on the tobacco trade perhaps suggested this ag- 
gravated expression to Mrs. Tetterby. “ I nev- 
er have a holiday, or any pleasure at all, from 
year’s end to year’s end ! Why, Lord bless and 
save the child!” said Mrs. Tetterby, shaking 
the baby with an irritability hardly suited to so 
pious an aspiration, “what’s the matter with 
her now!” 

Not being able to discover, and not rendering 
the subject much clearer by shaking it, Mrs. 
Tetterby put the baby away in a cradle, and, 
folding her arms, sat rocking it angrily with her 
foot. 

“ How you stand there, ’Dolphus,” said Mrs. 
Tetterby to her husband. “ Why don’t you do 
something!” 

“ Because I don’t care about doing anything,” 
Mr. Tetterby replied. 

“ I am sure I don’t,” said Mrs. Tetterby. 

“ I’ll take my oath I don’t,” said Mr. Tetterby. 

A diversion arose here among Johnny and 
his five younger brothers, who, in preparing the 
family breakfast table, had fallen to skirmishing 
for the temporary possession of the loaf, and 
were buffeting one another with great hearti- 
ness ; the smallest boy of all, with precocious 
discretion, hovering outside the knot of com- 
batants, and harassing their legs. Into the 
midst of this fray Mr. and Mrs. Tetterby both 
precipitated themselves with great ardour, as 
if such ground were the only ground on which 
they could now agree ; and having, with no 
visible remains of their late soft-heartedness, 
laid about them without any lenity, and done 
much execution, resumed their former relative 
positions. 


28 


THE HAUNTED MAN AND 


“You had better read your paper than do 
nothing at all,” said Mrs. Tetterby. 

“ What’s there to read in a paper 1” returned 
Mr. Tetterby, with excessive discontent. 

“WhatT’ said Mrs. Tetterby. “Police.” 

“ It’s nothing to me,” said Tetterby. “ What 
do I care what people do, or are done tol” 

“ Suicides,” suggested Mrs. Tetterby. 

“ No business of mine,” replied her husband. 

“Births, deaths, and marriages, are those 
nothing to you I” said Mrs. Tetterby. 

“ If the births were all over for good, and all 
to-day, and the deaths were all to begin to 
come off to-morrow, I don’t see why it should 
interest me, till I thought it was a coming to 
my turn,” grumbled Tetterby. “As to mar- 
riages, I’ve done it myself. I know quite 
enough about /Acm.” 

To judge from the dissatisfied expression of 
her face and manner, Mrs. Tetterby appeared 
to entertain the same opinions as her husband ; 
but she opposed him, nevertheless, for the grati- 
fication of quarrelling with him. 

“ Oh, you’re a consistent man,” said Mrs. 
Tetterby, “an’t you! You, with the screen 
of your own making there, made of nothing 
else but bits of newspapers, which you sit and 
read to the children by the half hour together.” 

“ Say used to, if you please,” returned her 
husband. “ 5fou won’t find me doing so any 
more. I’m wiser now.” 

“ Bah ! wiser, indeed !” said Mrs. Tetterby. 
“ Are you better 1” 

The question sounded some discordant note 
in Mr. Tetterby’s breast. He ruminated de- 
jectedly, and passed his hand across and across 
his forehead. 

“ Better !” murmured Mr. Tetterby. “I don’t 
know as any of us are bettef, or happier either. 
Better, is itl” 

He turned to the screen, and traced about it 
with his finger, until he found a certain para- 
graph of which he was in quest. 

“ This used to be one of the family favour- 
ites, I recollect,” said Tetterby, in a forlorn 
and stupid way, “ and used to draw tears from 
the children, and make ’em good, if there was 
any little bickering or discontent among ’em, 
next to the story of the robin redbreasts in the 
W’ood. ‘ Melancholly case of destitution. Yes- 
terday, a small man, with a baby in his arms, 
and surrounded by half a dozen ragged little 
ones, of various ages between ten and two, 
the whole of w’hom were evidently in a fam- 
ishing condition, appeared before the w'orthy 
magistrate, and made the following recital :’ 
— Ha ! 1 don’t understand it. I’m sure,” said 
Tetterby ; “ I don’t see what it has got to do 
with us.” 

“ How old and shabby he looks,” said Mrs. 
Tetterby, watching him. “ I never saw such 
a change in a man. Ah ! dear me, dear me, 
dear me, it was a sacrifice !” 

“What was a sacrifice!” her husband sour- 
ly inquired. 

Mrs. Tetterby shook her head ; and without 
replying in words, raised a complete sea-storm 
about the baby, by her violent agitation of the 
cradle. 

“ If you mean your marriage was a sacrifice, 
my good woman — ” said her husband. 

“ I do mean it,” said his wife. 


“ Why, then I mean to say,” pursued Mr. 
Tetterby, as sulkily and surlily as she, “that 
there are two sides to that affair ; and that I 
was the sacrifice ; and that I wish the sacrifice 
hadn’t been accepted.” 

“ I wish it hadn’t, Tetterby, with all my heart 
and soul, I do assure you,” said his wife. “ You 
can’t wish it more than I do, Tetterby.” 

“ I don’t know w'hat I saw in her,” muttered 
the newsman, “ I’m sure ; certainly, if I saw 
anything, it’s not there now. I was thinking 
so, last night, after supper, by the fire. She’s 
fat, she’s ageing, she won’t bear comparison 
with most other women.” 

“ He’s common-looking, he has no air with 
him, he’s small, he’s beginning to stoop, and 
he’s getting bald,” muttered Mrs. Tetterby. 

^ “ I must have been half out of my mind when 
I did it,” muttered Mr. Tetterby. 

“ My senses must have forsook me. That’s 
the only way in which I can explain it to my- 
self,” said Mrs. Tetterby, with elaboration. 

In this mood they sat down to breakfast. 
The little Tetterbys were not habituated to re- 
gard that meal in the light of a sedentary occu 
pation, but discussed it as a dance or trot ; rath 
er resembling a savage ceremony, in the occa- 
sional shrill whoops, and brandishings of bread 
and butter, with which it was accompanied, as 
well as in the intricate filings off into the street 
and back again, and the hoppings up and down 
the door steps, which were incidental to the 
performance. In the present instance, the con 
tentions between these Tetterby children for 
the milk-and-water jug, common to all, which 
stood upon the table, presented so lamentable 
an instance of angry passions risen very high 
indeed, that it was an outrage on the memory 
of Doctor Watts. It was not until Mr. Tetter 
by had driven the whole herd out at the front 
door, that a moment’s peace was secured ; and 
even that was broken by the discovery that 
Johnny had surreptitiously come back, and was 
at that instant choking in the jug like a ventril- 
oquist, in his indecent and rapacious haste. 

“ These children will be the death of me at 
last !” said Mrs. Tetterby, after banishing the 
culprit. “And the sooner the better, I think.” 

“ Poor people,” said Mr. Tetterby, “ ought 
not to have children at all. They give us no 
pleasure.” 

He was at that moment taking up the cup 
which Mrs. Tetterby had rudely pushed toward 
him, and Mrs. Tetterby was lifting her own cup 
to her lips, when they both stopped, as if they 
were transfixed. 

“ Here ! Mother ! Father !” cried Johnny, 
running into the room. “ Here’s Mrs. William 
coming down the street !” 

And if ever, since the world began, a young 
boy took a baby from a cradle with the care of 
an old nurse, and hushed and soothed it tender- 
ly, and tottered away with it cheerfully, Johnny 
was th.at boy, and Moloch was that baby, as 
they went out together ! 

Mr. Tetterby put down his cup ; Mrs. Tetter- 
by put down her cup. Mr. Tetterby rubbed his 
forehead ; Mrs. Tetterby rubbed hers. Mr. 
Tetterby’s face began to smooth and brighten ; 
Mrs. Tetterby’s began to smooth and bright- 
en. 

“ Why, Lord forgive me,” said Mr. Tetterby 


THE GHOST’S BARGAIN. 


to himself, “ what evil tempers have I been giv- 
ing way to 1 What has been the matter here !” 

“ How could I ever treat him ill again, after 
all I have said and felt last night !” sobbed Mrs. 
Tetterby with her apron to her eyes. 

“ Am I a brute,” said Mr. Tetterby, “ or is 
there any good in me at all 1 Sophia ! My lit- 
tle woman !” 

“ ’Dolphus dear,” returned his wife. 

“ I — I’ve been in a state of mind,” said Mr. 
Tetterby, “that I can’t abear to think of, Sophy.” 

“ Oh ! It’s nothing to what I’ve beeu 
Dolf,” cried his wife, in a great burst of grief. 

“ My Sophia,” said Mr. Tetterby, “ don’t take 
on. I never shall forgive myself. I must have 
nearly broke your heart, I know.” 

“ No, Dolf, no. It was me ! Me !” cried 
Mrs. Tetter.by. 

“ My little woman,” said her husband, “ don’t. 
You make me reproach myself dreadful, when 
you show such a noble spirit. Sophia, my dear, 
you don’t know what I thought. I showed it 
bad enough, no doubt ; but what I thought, my 
little woman !” 

“ Oh, dear Dolf, don’t ! Don’t !” cried his 
wife. 

“ Sophia,” said Mr. Tetterby, “ I must reveal 
it. I couldn’t rest in my conscience unless I 
mentioned it. My little woman — ” 

“ Mrs. William’s very nearly here !” screamed 
Johnny at the door. 

“ My little woman, I wondered how,” gasped 
Mr. Tetterby, supporting himself by his chair, 
“ I wondered how I had ever admired you — I 
forgot the precious children you have brought 
about me, and thought you didn’t look as slim 
as I could wish. I — I never gave a recollec- 
tion,” said Mr. Tetterby, with severe self-accu- 
sation, “to the cares you’ve had as my wife, 
and along of me and mine, when you might 
have had hardly any with another man, who 
got on better and was luckier than me (any- 
body might have found such a man easily I am 
sure) ; and I quarrelled with you for having 
aged a little in the rough years you’ve lighten- 
ed for me. Can you believe it, my little wom- 
an I I hardly can myself.” 

Mrs. Tetterby, in a whirlwind of laughing 
and crying, caught his face within her hands, 
and held it there. 

“Oh, Dolf!” she cried. “I am so happy 
that you thought so ; I am so grateful that you 
thought so I For I thought that you were com- 
mon-looking, Dolf ; and so you are, my dear, 
and may you be the commonest of all sights in 
my eyes, till you close them with your own good 
hands. I thought that you were small ; and so 
you are, and I’ll make much of you because you 
are, and more of you because I love my hus- 
band. I thought that you began to stoop ; and 
so you do, and you shall lean on me, and I’ll 
do all I can to keep you up. I thought there 
was no air about you ; but there is, and it’s the 
air of home, and that’s the purest and the best 
there is, and God bless home once more, and 
all belonging to it, Dolf!” 

“ Hurrah ! Here’s Mrs. William !” cried 
Johnny. 

So she was, and all the children with her ; 
and as she came in, they kissed her, and kissed 
one another, and kissed the baby, and kissed 
their father and mother, and then ran back and 


29 

flocked and danced about her, trooping on with 
her in triumph. 

Mr. and Mrs. Tetterby were not a bit behind- 
hand in the warmth of their reception. They 
were as much attracted to her as the children 
were ; they ran towards her, kissed her hands, 
pressed round her, could not receive her ardent- 
ly or enthusiastically enough. She came among 
them like the spirit of all goodness, affection, 
gentle consideration, love, and domesticity. 

“ What ! are you all so glad to see me, too, 
this bright Christmas morning !” said Milly, 
clapping her hands in a pleasant wonder. “ Oh 
dear, how delightful this is !” 

More shouting from the children, more kiss- 
ing, more trooping round her, more happiness^ 
more love, more joy, more honour, on all sides, 
than she could bear. 

“ Oh dear !” said Milly, “ what delicious tears 
you make me shed. How can I ever have de- 
served this ! What have I done to be so loved !” 

“ Who can help it !” cried Mr. Tetterby. 

“Who can help it !” cried Mrs. Tetterby. 

“ Who can help it !” echoed the children, in 
a joyful chorus. And they danced and trooped 
about her again, and clung to her, and laid their 
rosy faces against her dress, and kissed and fond- 
led it, and could not fondle it, or her, enough. 

“ I never was so moved,” said Milly, drying 
her eyes, “ as I have been this morning. I must 
tell you, as soon as I can speak. — Mr. Redlaw 
came to me at sunrise, and with a tenderness 
in his manner, more as if I had been his darling 
daughter than myself, implored me to go with 
him to where William’s brother George is lying 
ill. We went together, and all the way along 
he was so kind, and so subdued, and seemed to 
put such trust and hope in me, that I could not 
help crying with pleasure. When we got to 
the house, we met a woman at the door (some- 
body had bruised and hurt her, I am afraid) who 
caught me by the hand, and blessed me as I 
passed.” 

“She was right!”, said Mr. Tetterby. Mrs. 
Tetterby said she was right. All the children 
cried out she was right. 

“ Ah, but there’s morb than that,” said Mkly. 
“ When we got up stairs, into the room, the 
sick man, w'ho had lain for hours in a state from 
which no effort could rouse him, rose up in his 
bed, and, bursting into tears, stretched out his 
arms to me, and said that he had led a misspent 
life, but that he was truly repentant now’, in his 
sorrow fo the past, w’hich was all as plain to him 
as a great prospect, from which a dense black 
cloud had cleared away, and that he entreated 
me to ask his poor old father for his pardon and 
his blessing, and to say a prayer beside his bed. 
And when I did so, Mr. Redlaw joined in it so 
fervently, and then so thanked and thanked me, 
and thanked Heaven, that my heart quite over- 
flowed, and I could have done nothing but sob 
and cry, if the sick man had not begged me to 
sit down by him, — which made me quiet of 
course. As I sat there, he held my hand in 
his until he sunk in a doze ; and even then, 
when I withdrew my hand to leave him to come 
here (w’hich Mr. Redlaw was very earnest in- 
deed in wishing me to do), his hand felt for 
mine, so that some one else was obliged to take 
my place and make believe to give him my hand 
back. Oh dear, oh dear,” said Milly, sobbing. 


30 


THE HAUNTED MAN AND 


** How thankful and how happy I should feel, 
and do feel, for all this !” 

While she was speaking, Redlaw had come 
in, and, after pausing for a moment to observe 
the group of which she was the centre, had si- 
lently ascended the stairs. Upon those stairs 
he now appeared again ; remaining there, while 
the young student passed him and came running 
down. 

“ Kind nurse, gentlest, best of creatures,” he 
said, falling on his knee to her, and catching at 
her hand, “ forgive my cruel ingratitude !” 

“Oh dear, oh dear!” cried Milly innocently, 
“here’s another of them I Oh dear, here’s 
somebody else who likes me. What shall I 
ever do !” 

The guileless, simple way in which she said 
it, and in which she put her hands before her 
eyes and wept for very happiness, was as touch- 
ing as it was delightful. 

“ I was not myself,” he said. “ I don’t know 
what it was — it was some consequence of my 
disorder perhaps — I w'as mad. But I am so no 
longer. Almost as I speak, I am restored. I 
heard the children crying out your name, and 
the shade passed from me at the very sound of 
it. Oh don’t weep ! Dear Milly, if you could 
read my heart, and only know with what affec- 
tion and what grateful homage it is glowing, 
you would not let me see you weep. It is such 
deep reproach.” 

“ No, no,” said Milly, “ it’s not that. It’s not, 
indeed. It’s joy. It’s wonder that you should 
think it necessary to ask me to forgive so little, 
and yet it’s a pleasure that you do.” 

“ And will you come again 1 and will you fin- 
ish the little curtain 1” 

“ No,” said Milly, drying her eyes, and shak- 
ing her head. “ You won’t care for my needle- 
work now.” 

“ Is it forgiving me, to say that 1” 

She beckoned him aside, and whispered in 
his ear. 

“ There is news from your home, Mr. Ed- 
mund.” 

“Newsi Howl” 

“ Either your not writing when you were 
very ill, or the change in your handwriting when 
you began to be better, created some suspicion 
of the truth ; however that is — but you’re sure 
you’ll not be the wmrse for any news, if it’s not 
bad news'!” 

“ Sure.” 

“Then there’s some one come !” said Milly. 

“My mother 1” asked the student, glancing 
round involuntarily towards Redlaw, who had 
come down from the stairs. 

“ Hush ! No,” said Milly. 

“ It can be no one else.” 

“ Indeed 1” said Milly, “ are you sure I” 

“ It is not — ” Before he could say more, she 
put her hand upon his mouth. 

“Yes it is!” said Milly. “The young lady 
(she is very like the miniature, Mr. Edmund, 
but she is prettier) was too unhappy to rest 
without satisfying her doubts, and came up, last 
night, with a little servant-maid. As you al- 
ways dated your letters from the college, she 
came there ; and before I saw Mr. Redlaw this 
morning, I saw her. She likes me too !” said 
Milly. “ Oh dear, that’s another !” 

“ This morning ! Where is she now "I” 


“ Why, she is now,” said Milly, advancing 
her lips to his ear, “ in my little parlor in the 
Lodge, and waiting to see you.” 

He pressed her hand, and was darting off, but 
she detained him. 

“ Mr. Redlaw is much altered, and has told 
me this morning that his memory is impaired. 
Be very considerate to him, Mr. Edmund ; he 
needs that from us all.” 

The young man assured her, by a look, that 
her caution was not ill-bestowed ; and as he 
passed the Chemist on his way out, bent re- 
spectfully and with an obvious interest before 
him. 

Redlaw returned the salutation courteously 
and even humbly, and looked after him as he 
passed on. He drooped his head upon his hand 
too, as trying to re-awaken something he had 
lost. But it was gone. 

The abiding change that had come upon him 
since the influence of the music, and the Phan- 
tom’s reappearance, was, that now he truly felt 
how much he had lost, and could compassion- 
ate his own condition, and contrast it, clearly, 
with the natural state of those around him. In 
this, an interest in those who were around him 
was revived, and a meek, submissive sense of 
his calamity was bred, resembling that which 
sometimes obtains in age, when its mental pow- 
ers are weakened, without insensibility or sul- 
lenness being added to the list of its infirmi- 
ties. 

He was conscious, that, as he redeemed, 
through Milly, more and more of the evil he had 
done, and as he was more and more with her, 
this change ripened itself within him. There- 
fore, and because of the attachment she inspir- 
ed him with (but without other hope), he felt 
that he was quite dependent on her, and that 
she was his staff in his affliction. 

So, when she asked him whether they should 
go home now, to where the old man and her 
husband were, and he readily replied “ yes” — 
being anxious in that regard — he put his arm 
through hers, and walked beside her ; not as 
if he were the wise and learned man to whom 
the wonders of nature were an open book, and 
hers were the uninstructed mind, but as if their 
two positions were reversed, and he knew 
nothing, and she all. 

He saw the children throng about her, and 
caress her, as he and she went away together 
thus, out of the house ; he heard the ringing of 
their laughter, and their merry voices ; he saw 
their bright faces, clustering round him like 
flowers ; he witnessed the renewed content- 
ment and affection of their parents ; he breath- 
ed the simple air of their poor home, restored 
to its tranquillity ; he thought of the unwhole- 
some blight he had shed upon it, and might, 
but for her, have been diffusing then ; and per- 
haps it is no wonder that he walked submis- 
sively beside her, and drew her gentle bosom 
nearer to his own. 

When they arrived at the Lodge, the old 
man was sitting in his chair in the chimney- 
corner, with his eyes fixed on the ground, and 
his son was leaning against the opposite side 
of the fire-place, looking at him. As she came 
in at the door, both started, and turned round 
towards her, and a radiant change came upon 
their faces. 


THE GHOST 

“ Oh dear, dear, dear, they are pleased to 
see me like the rest !” cried Milly, clapping her 
hands in an ecstasy, and stopping short. 

“ Here are two more !” 

Pleased to see her ! Pleasure was no word 
for it. She ran into her husband’s arms, 
thrown wide open to receive her, and he would 
have been glad to have her there, with her 
head lying on his shoulder, through the short 
winter’s day. But the old man couldnit spare 
her. He had arms for her too, and he locked 
her in them. 

“ Why, where has my quiet Mouse been all 
this time 1” said the old man. “ She has been 
a long while away. I find that it’s impossible 
for me to get on without Mouse. I — where’s 
my son William 1 — I fancy I have been dream- 
ing, William.” 

“ That’s what I say myself, father,” returned 
his son. “ I have been in an ugly sort of dream, 

I think. How are you, father 1 Are you pret- 
ty well"!” 

“ Strong and brave, my boy,” returned the 
old man. 

It was quite a sight to see Mr. William shak- 
ing hands with his father, and patting him on 
the back, and rubbing him gently down with 
his hand, as if he could not possibly do enough 
to show an interest in him. 

“ What a wonderful man you are, father ! 
How are you, father! Are you really pretty 
hearty, though!” said William, shaking hands 
with him again, and patting him again, and rub- 
bing him gently down again. 

“ I never was fresher or stouter in my life, 
my boy.” 

“ What a wonderful man you are father ! 
But th.it’s exactly where it is,” said Mr. Will- 
iam, Mith enthusiasm. “When I think of all 
that my father’s gone through, and all the 
chances and changes, and sorrows and troubles, 
that have happened, to him in the course of his 
long life, and^under which his head, has grown 
grey, and years upon years have gathered on 
it, I feel as if we coi idn't do enough to honour 
the old gentleman, and make his old age easy. 
How are you, father! Are you really pretty 
well, though!” 

Mr. William might never have left off repeat- 
ing this inquiry, and shaking hands with him 
again, and patting him again, and rubbing him 
down again, if the old man had not espied the 
Chemist, w'hom until now he had not seen. 

“ I ask your pardon, Mr. Redlaw,” said Phil- 
ip, “ but didn’t know you were here, sir, or 
should have made less free. It reminds me, 
Mr. Redlaw, seeing you here on a Christmas 
morning, of the time when you was a student 
yourself, and worked so hard that you was 
backwards and forwards in our Library even 
at Christmas time. Ha ! ha ! I’m old enough 
to remember that ; and I remember it right 
well, I do, though I’m eighty-seven. It was 
after you left here that my poor wife died You 
remember my poor wife, Mr. Redlaw !” 

The Chemist answered yes. 

“ Yes,” said the old man. “ She was a dear 
creetur. I recollect you come here one Christ- 
mas morning with a young lady — I ask your 
pardon, Mr. Redlaw, but I think it was a sister 
you was very much attached to!” 

The Chemist looked at him, and shook his 


’S BARGAIN. 31 

head. “ I had a sister,” he said vacantly. He 
knew no more. 

“ One Christmas morning,” pursued the old 
man, “ that you came here with her — and it be- 
gan to snow, and my wife invited the young 
lady to walk in, and sit by the fire that is al- 
ways a burning on Christmas day in what used 
to be, before our ten poor gentlemen commuted, 
our great Dinner Hall. I was there ; and I rec- 
ollect, as I was stirring up the blaze for the 
young lady to warm her pretty feet by, she 
read the scroll out loud, that is underneath that 
picter. ‘ Lord, keep my memory green !’ She 
and my poor wife fell a talking about it ; and 
it’s a strange thing to think of, now, that they 
both said (both being so unlike to die) that it 
was a good prayer, and that it was one they 
would put up very earnestly, if they were called 
away young, with reference to those who w'ere 
dearest to them. ‘ My brother,’ says the young 
lady — ‘ My husband,’ says my poor wife. ‘ Lord, 
keep his memory of me, green, and do not let 
me be forgotten !’ ” 

Tears more painful, and more bitter than he 
had ever shed in all his life, coursed down Red- 
law’s face. Philip, fully occupied in recalling 
his story, had not observed him until now, nor 
Milly’s anxiety that he should not proceed. 

“ Philip !” said Redlaw, laying his hand upon 
his arm, “ I am a stricken man, on whom the 
hand of Providence has fallen heavily, although 
deservedly. You speak to me, my friend, of 
what I cannot follow ; my memory is gone.” 

“Merciful Power !” cried the old man. 

“ I have lost my memory of sorrow, wrong, 
and trouble,” said the Chemist ; “ and with that 
I have lost all, man would remember !” 

To see old Philip’s pity for him, to see him 
wheel his own great chair for him to rest in, 
and look down upon him with a solemn sense 
of his bereavement, was to know, in some de- 
gree, how precious to old age such recollections 
are. 

The boy 3 ame running in, and. ran. to Milly. 

“ Here’s the man,” he said, “ in the other 
room. I dor’^ want Aim.” 

“ What man does he mean!” asked Mr. Wil- 
liam. 

“ Hush !” said Milly. 

Obedient to a sign from her, he and his old 
father softly withdrew. As they went out, un- 
noticed, Redlaw beckoned to the boy to come 
him. 

“ I like the woman best,” he answered, hold- 
ing to her skirts. 

“You are right,” said Redlaw, with a faint 
smile. “ But you needn’t fear to come to me. 
I am gentler than I was. Of all the world, to 
you, poor child !” 

The boy still held back at first ; but yielding 
little by little to her urging, he consented to ap- 
proach, and even to sit dowm at her feet. As 
Redlaw laid his hand upon the shoulder of the 
child, looking on him with compassion and a 
fellow’-feeling, he put out his other hand to Milly. 
She stooped down on that side of him, so that 
she could look into his face, and after silence, 
said : 

“ Mr. Redlaw, may I speak to you !” 

“Yes,” he answered, fixing his eyes upon 
her. “ Your voice and music are the same to 
me.” 


32 


THE HAUNTED MAN AND 


“ May I ask you something 1” 

“ What you will.” 

“Do you remember what I said, when I 
knocked at your door last night 1 About one 
who was your friend once, and who stood on 
the verge of destruction!” 

“ Yes. I remember,” he said, with some hes- 
itation. 

“ Do you understand it!” 

He smoofhed the boy’s hair — looking at her 
fixedly the while — and shook his head. 

“ This person,” said Milly, in her clear, soft 
voice, which her mild eyes, looking at him, 
made clearer and softer, “ I found soon after- 
wards. I went back to the house, and, with 
Heaven’s help, traced him. I was not too soon. 
A very little, and I should have been too late.” 
- He took his hand from the boy, and laying it 
on the back of that hand of hers, whose timid 
and yet earnest touch addressed him no less 
appealingly than her voice and eyes, looked 
more intently on her. 

“ He is the father of Mr. Edmund, the young 
gentleman we saw just now. His real name 
is Longford. You recollect the name?” 

“ I recollect the name.” 

“ And the man !” 

“ No, not the man. Did he ever wrong me !” 

“ Yes !” 

“ Ah ! Then it’s hopeless — hopeless.” 

He shook his head, and softly beat upon the 
hand he held, as though mutely asking her com- 
miseration. 

“ I did not go to Mr. Edmund last night,” said 
Milly. “You will listen to me just the same 
as if you did remember all !” 

“ To every syllable you say.” 

“ Both, because I did not know, then, that 
this really was his father, and because I was 
fearful of the effect of such intelligence upon 
him, after his illness, if it should be. Since I 
have known who this person is, I have not gone 
eitKer^, but that is for another reason. He has 
long been separaCecl from his wife and son — has 
been a stranger to his home almost from this 
son’s infancy, I learn from him. — has aban- 
doned and deserted what he shouH have held 
most dear. In all that time he has bePd falling 
from the state of a gentleman more and mioref 
until — ” she rose up hastily, and going out for 
a moment, returned, accompanied by the wreck 
that Redlaw had beheld last night. 

“ Do you know me !” asked the Chemist. 

“ I should be glad,” returned the other, “ and 
that is an unwonted word for me to use, if I 
could answer no.” 

The Chemist looked at the man, standing in 
self-abasement and degradation before him, and 
would have looked longer, in an ineffectual 
struggle for enlightenment, but that Milly re- 
sumed her late position by his side, and attract- 
ed his attentive gaze to her own face. 

“ See how low he is sunk, how lost he is !” 
she whispered, stretching out her arm towards 
him, without looking from the Chemist’s face. 
“ If you could remember all that is connected 
with him, do you not think it would move your 
pity to reflect that one you ever loved (do not 
let us mind how long ago, or in what belief that 
he has forfeited) should come to this !” 

“ I hope it would,” he answered. “ I believe 
I would.” 


His eyes wandered to the figure standing 
near the door, but came back speedily to her, 
on whom he gazed intently, as if he strove to 
learn some lesson from every tone of her voice 
and every beam of her eyes. 

“ I have no learning, and you have much,” 
said Milly ; “lam not used to think, and you 
are always thinking. May I tell you why it 
seems to me a good thing for us to remember 
wrong that has been done us !” 

“ Yes.” 

“That we may forgive it.” 

“ Pardon me, great Heaven !” said Redlaw, 
lifting up his eyes, “ for having thrown away 
thine own high attribute !” 

“ And if,” said Milly, “ if your memory should 
one day be restored, as we will hope and pray 
it may be, would it not be a blessing to you to 
recall at once a wrong and its forgiveness !” • 

He looked at the figure by the door, and fas- 
tened his attentive eyes on her again ; a ray 
of clearer light appeared to him to shine into 
his mind from her bright face. 

“ He cannot go to his abandoned home. He 
does not seek to go there. He knows that he 
could only carry shame and trouble to those he 
has so cruelly neglected ; and that the best rep- 
aration he can make them now is to avoid them. 
A very little money carefully bestowed would 
remove him to some distant place, where he 
might live and do no wrong, and make such 
atonement as is left within his power for the 
wrong he has done. To the unfortunate lady 
who is his wife, and to his son, this would be 
the best and kindest boon that their best friend 
could give them — one too that they need never 
know of; and to him, shattered in reputation, 
mind, and body, it might be salvation.” 

He took her head between his hands and 
kissed it, and said : “ It shall be done. I trust 
to you to do it for me, now and secretly ; and ' 
to tell him that I would forgive him if I were 
so happy as to know for what.” 

As she rose, and turned her beaming face to- 
wards the fallen man, implying that her media- 
tion had been successful, he advanced a step, 
and, without raising his eyes, addressed him- 
self to Redlaw. 

“ You are so generous,” he said “ — ^you ever 
were— that you will try to banish your rising 
sense of retribution in the spectacle that is be- 
fore you. I do not try lo banish it from myself, 
Redlaw. If you can, believe me.” 

The Chemist entreated Milly, by a gesture, 
to come nearer to him ; and, as he listened, 
looked in her face, as if to find in it the clue to 
what he heard. 

“ I am too decayed a wretch to make pro- 
fessions ; I recollect my own career too well, 
to array any such before you. But from the 
day on which I made my first step downward, 
in dealing falsely by you, I have gone down with 
a certain, steady, doomed progression. That, 

I say.” 

Redlaw, keeping her close at his side, turned 
his face towards the speaker, and there was 
sorrow in it. Something like mournful recog- 
nition too. 

“ I might have been another man, my life 
might have been another life, if I had avoided 
that first fatal step. I don’t know that it would 
have been. I claim nothing for the possibility. 


THE GHOST 

Your sister is at rest, and better than she could 
have been with me, if I liad continued even what 
you thought me : even what I once supposed 
myself to be.” 

Redlaw made a hasty motion with his hand, 
as if he would have put that subject on one side. 

“I speak,” the other went on, “like a man 
taken from the grave. I should have made my 
own grave, last night, had it not been /or this 
blessed hand.” 

“Oh dear, he likes me too!” sobbed Milly, 
under her breath. “ That’s another 1” 

“ I could not have put myself in your way, 
last night, even for bread. But, to-day, my 
recollection of what has been between us is so 
strongly stirred, and is presented to me, I don’t 
know how, so vividly, that I have dared to come 
at her suggestion, and to take your bounty, and 
to thank you for it, and to beg you, Redlaw, in 
your dying hour, to be as merciful to me in your 
thoughts as you are in your deeds.” 

He turned towards the door, and stopped a 
moment on his way forth. 

“ I hope my son may interest you, for his 
mother’s sake. I hope he may deserve to do 
so. Unless my life should be preserved a long 
time, and I should know that I have not mis- 
used your aid, I shall never look upon him 
more.” 

Going out, he raised his eyes to Redlaw’^ for 
the first time. Redlaw, whose steadfast gaze 
was fixed upon him, dreamily held out his hand. 
He returned and touched it — little more — with 
both his own ; and bending down his head, went 
slowly out. 

In the few moments that elapsed, while Milly 
silently took him to the gate, the Chemist drop- 
ped into his chair, and covered his face with 
his hands. Seeing him thus, when she came 
back, accompanied by her husband and his fa- 
ther (who w^ere both greatly concerned for him), 
she avoided disturbing him, or permitting him 
to be disturbed ; and kneeled down near the 
chair to put some warm clothing on the boy. 

“ That’s exactly where it is. That’s what I 
alw^ays say, father !” exclaimed her admiring 
husband. “ There’s a motherly feeling in Mrs. 
William’s breast that must and will have went !” 

“ Ay, ay,” said the old man ; “ you’re right. 
My son William’s right I” 

“ It happens all for the best, Milly dear, no 
' doubt,” said Mr. William, tenderly, “ that we 
have no children of our own ; and yet I some- 
times wish you had one to love and cherish. 
Our little dead child that you built such hopes 
upon, and that never breathed the breath of 
life — it has made you quiet-like, Milly.” 

“ I am very happy in the recollection of it, 
William dear,” she answered. “I think of it 
every day.” 

“ I was afraid you thought of it a good deal.” 

“ Don’t say, afraid ; it is a comfort to me; it 
speaks to me in so many ways. The innocent 
thing that never lived on earth, is like an angel 
to me, William.” 

“You are like an angel to father and me,” 
said Mr. William, softly. “ I know that.” 

“When I think of all those hopes I built upon 
it, and the many times I sat and pictured to my- 
self the little smiling face upon my bosom that 
never lay there, and the sweet eyes turned up 
to mine that never opened to the light,” said 

C 


’S BARGAIN 33 

Milly, “ I can feel a greater tenderness, I think, 
for all the disappointed hopes in which there is 
no harm. When I see a beautiful child in its 
fond mother’s arms, I love it all the better, 
thinking that my child might have been like 
that, and might have made my heart as proud 
and happy.” 

Redlaw raised his head, and looked towards 
her. 

“ All through life, it seems by me,” she con- 
tinued, “ to tell me something. For poor neg- 
lected children, my little child pleads as if it 
were alive, and had a voice I knew with which 
to speak to me. When I hear of youth in suf- 
fering or shame, I think that my child might 
have come to that, perhaps, and that God took 
it from me in his mercy. Even in age and 
grey hair, such as father’s, it is present : say- 
ing that it too might have lived to be old, long 
and long after you and I were gone, and to have 
needed the respect and love of younger people.” 

Her quiet voice was quieter than ever, as 
she took her husband’s arm, and laid her head 
against it. 

“ Children love me so, that sometimes I half 
fancy — it’s a silly fancy, William— they have 
some way I don’t know of, of feeling for my lit- 
tle child, and me, and understanding why their 
love is precious to me. If I have been quiet 
since, I have been more happy, William, in a 
hundred ways. Not .least happy, dear, in this 
— that even when my little child was born and 
dead but a few days, and I was weak and sor- 
rowful, and could not help grieving a little, the 
thought arose, that if I tried to lead a good life, 
I should meet in Heaven a bright creature who 
would call me Mother!” 

Redlaw fell upon his knees with a loud cry. 

“ O Thou,” he said, “ who, through the teach- 
ing of pure love, hast graciously restored me to 
the memory which was the memory of Christ 
upon the cross, and of all the good who perished 
in his cause, receive my thanks, and bless her!” 

Then he folded her to his heart ; and Milly, 
sobbing more than ever, cried, as she laughed, 
“ He is come back to himself! He likes me 
very much indeed, too ! Oh, dear, dear, dear 
me, here’s another !” 

Then the student entered, leading by the 
hand a lovely girl who was afraid to come. 
And Redlaw, so changed towards him, seeing 
in him and in his youthful choice the softened 
shadow of that chastening passage in his own 
life, to which, as to a shady tree, the dove so 
long imprisoned in his solitary ark might fly 
for rest and company, fell upon his neck, en- 
treating them to be his children. 

Then, as Christmas is a time in which, of all 
times in the year, the memory of every reme- 
diable sorrow, wrong, and trouble in the world 
around us should be active with us, not less 
than our owm experiences, for all good, he laid 
his hand upon the boy, and, silently calling Hina 
to witness who laid His hand on children in old 
time, rebuking, in the majesty of his prophetic 
knowledge, those who kept them from him, 
vowed to protect him, teach him, and reclaim 
him. 

Then he gave his right hand cheerily to 
Philip, and said that they would that day hold 
a Christmas dinner in what used to be, before 
the ten poor gentlemen commuted, their great 


34 ‘ THE HAUNTED MAN, &:c. 


Dinner Hall ; and that they would bid to it as 
many of that Swidger family, who, his son had 
told him, were so numerous that they might 
join hands and make a ring round England, as 
could be brought together on so short a notice. 

And it was that day done. There were so 
many Swidgers there, grown up and children, 
that an attempt to state them in round numbers 
might engender doubts, in the distrustful, of the 
veracity of this history. Therefore the attempt 
shall not be made. But there they were, by 
dozens and scores — and there was good news 
and good hope there, ready for them, of George, 
who had been visited again by his father and 
brother, and by Milly, and again left in a quiet 
sleep. There, present at the dinner, too, were 
the Tetterbys, including young Adolphus, who 
arrived in his prismatic comforter, in good time 
for the beef. Johnny and the baby were too 
late, of course, and came in all on one side, the 
one exhausted, the other in a supposed state 
of double-tooth ; but that was customary, and 
not alarming. 

It was sad to see the child who had no name 
or lineage, watching the other children as they 
played, not knowing how to talk with them, or 
sport with them, and more strange to the ways 
of childhood than a rough dog. It was sad, 
though in a different way, to see what an in- 
stinctive knowledge the youngest children 
there had of his being different from all the 
rest, and how they made timid approaches to 
him with soft words and touches, and with lit- 
tle presents, that he might not be unhappy. 
But he kept by Milly, and began to love her — 
that was another, as she said ! and, as they all 


liked her dearly, they were glad of that, and 
when they saw him peeping at them from be- 
hind her chair, they were pleased that he was 
so close to it. 

All this the Chemist, sitting with the student 
and his bride that was to be, and Philip, and 
the rest, saw. 

Some people have said since that he only 
thought what has been herein set down ; others, 
that he read it in the fire, one winter night about 
the twilight time ; others, that the Ghost was 
but the representation of his gloomy thoughts, 
and Milly the embodiment of his better wisdom. 
/ say nothing. 

—Except this. That as they were assem- 
bled in the old Hall, by no other light than that 
of a great fire (having dined early), the shadows 
once more stole out of their hiding-places, and 
danced about the room, showing the children 
marvellous shapes and faces on the walls, and 
gradually changing what was real and familiar 
there, to what was wild and magical. But that 
there was one thing in the Hall to which the 
eyes of Redlaw, and of Milly and her husband, 
and of the old man, and of the^student, and his 
bride that was to be, were often turned, which 
the shadows did not obscure or change. Deep- 
ened in its gravity by the firelight, and gazing 
from the darkness of the panneled wall like life, 
the sedate face in the portrait, with the beard 
and ruff, looked down at them from under its 
verdant wreath of holly, as they looked up at 
it ; and, clear and plain below, as if a voice had 
uttered them, were the words, 

m 

Horn, Iteep mn memorjj flreeii. 


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